I Wish I Was
by Li'l Yahiko
Summary: Brian's not through with Neil. Neil's not through destroying himself. EricxBrian and WendyxOC but not the focus COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

I Wish I Was

(Disclaimer: Mysterious Skin and all related properties belong to Gregg Araki and Scott Heim.)

Chapter 1

(Brian Lackey)

When I woke up on Christmas morning, it wasn't with the usual tingling excitement that I usually woke up with. This morning I woke up feeling cold and… wet.

Pulling back the covers, I discovered with embarrassment that I'd wet the bed, something I hadn't done since childhood. Quickly I ripped the sheets from the mattress and tossed them in a crumpled heap to the floor. With as humiliating as it had been in childhood, it was only magnified by the fact that I was nearly twenty years old, so I couldn't let anyone find out. I crammed the soiled sheets into my closet in the corner to wash later when no one was around and found my spare set in the hall closet just outside my room.

I looked around for a minute, saw no one and heard no one within a reasonable distance, and returned to my room. I pulled the mattress cover, the sheet, the comforter tight over the mattress, smoothing wrinkle after wrinkle in the dim, early morning light that was coming from the window, and, as I sat there on my knees, tugging and smoothing and tugging and smoothing, I was suddenly overcome.

The sobbing noise was coming from me before I realized that it was me. I clutched the end of the comforter in my fist, resting my forehead against the corner of the mattress and cried and cried and cried until I was sure I would run out of body fluid, shrivel up, and become a wrinkled gray mass that would be no good for anything except staining the carpet.

The night before came playing back like a fucked up movie in my head, way too clear, unlike my previous waking dreams and memories.

Neil McCormick. It had all come back to him, hadn't it? He had taken me back to that place, _that place_, and before he'd even said anything, I knew what he was going to tell me. I didn't want to hear it, but I did, but I didn't, but I _did_. He told me everything, retracing the memories with those dark eyes of his, a quiet, near vulnerability to his voice that I was sure he didn't use on anyone else. He told me everything per my request, ready to stop whenever I asked, but I never told him to stop, and then when he was finished I had screamed at him and sobbed in his lap like some pathetic little kid (a lot like how I was now). I had spilled blood all over his jeans, and he'd clutched to me, shushing me like a mother in church, a feeling I was sure he was as unfamiliar with as I was with my temporary loss of sanity. The carolers had sung "Silent Night," and I wished that the night could have been that way, but the rush of blood in my ears and the choking pathetic sounds, and the screaming that may have all been in my head was just too loud.

Then the door opened, and Neil had stared like a raccoon caught in the garbage while they stared back with equally surprised and confused faces. He cracked a half-smile, grabbing me by the hand and dragging me along behind him and muttered something along the lines of, "whoops, wrong house." I think the family was so stunned that they didn't even think to memorize our faces or call the police until we were long gone.

Neil had practically thrown me into the back seat, and Eric was in the driver's seat, and Neil said to him with a slam of the passenger side door, "Drive. Now."

He did. Eric would do pretty much anything Neil told him to do; this I knew.

"What happened back there?" Eric asked once we'd gotten a few streets away from that godforsaken house. He seemed to retract his question when a whimpering sound escaped into the air, and I realized that it came from me. Well, maybe Neil had answered him. I didn't know because the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the back seat, slumped over pathetically. There was blood staining the back seat, and I vaguely thought that maybe club soda would get that out. Eric was staring at me with an overwhelming amount of sympathy, and Neil was giving me something along the lines of a pained expression, like it was an emotion he wasn't fully capable of making or understanding.

"We're at your house," Eric said, voice meeker than I'd ever remembered it sounding.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but instead Neil pulled out his shirt tail and wiped my nose clean of blood. I sat up robotically, looking around my front yard as if I'd never seen it before, and it started snowing. I got out of the car in what felt like slow motion and turned back, and Neil was looking right into my eyes, like he was seeing something he hadn't seen in years and had hoped to never see again because it felt ten times worse the second time.

"Merry Christmas," he said, and they were gone.

I went inside and heard Deborah and Mom talking animatedly in the kitchen. As silently as possible, I climbed the stairs and locked myself into my room. I remembered collapsing into the bed with all of my clothes on, even my shoes, pulling the blanket over my head, and wishing over and over again for this night to just be over with.

That was how I had gotten to this point. Unfortunately, it didn't seem that Christmas Day was faring any better so far.

I changed clothes and combed my fingers through my hair. I went into the bathroom and wiped my nose until I didn't feel dried blood anymore. I adjusted my glasses and straightened my shirt and put on a smile. Maybe my Christmas had been ruined. Maybe my _life_ had been ruined, but I wasn't about to take it out on unsuspecting Deborah and Mom. It wouldn't have been fair, even if I would have liked to blame my predicament on them.

I came downstairs to find them in the living room, drinking hot chocolate, listening to Christmas music playing softly over the radio.

"Morning, Brian. Merry Christmas," Deborah said with a watery smile. It was almost like she already knew something was wrong. It made me nervous. "We missed you last night."

"Sorry," I said with a meaningless shrug, "Merry Christmas."

"Did you have a good time with Eric?" Mom asked. "I certainly hope it wasn't such a good time that you felt you were too good to open presents with us."

I'd completely forgotten the tradition where we'd all open one gift the night before, and that layered an icing of guilt on top of all of my other horrible feelings. "I didn't realize how late it was," I lied. "I'm really sorry."

"Oh, it's all right," Mom waved it off. "It's nice to see you get out of the house once in a while."

I nodded, taking a seat by the Christmas tree. "Well, I guess we can open gifts now… if you want to. I think you'll like what I got you."

It was weird how much of an effort it was just to act like myself, like I didn't know who I was anymore. My entire life had been defined by a moment I couldn't even remember until last night. I hoped I'd had enough practice acting as me that I gave a convincing performance.

Deborah got Mom a fancy blouse from California that was the same color as the sand on the beach. It even smelled warm and sunny. She held it up to her, smiling and thanking Deborah over and over again. "Thank you, it's so beautiful, Deb. Thank you. I can't wait until it's warm enough to wear it. Thank you!"

She'd gotten Deborah a pretty necklace and me a watch. I put the watch on immediately, admiring its gold face. "Thanks," I told her, fighting to keep my smile and just feel happy about such a nice gift… but all I felt was this pit in my stomach growing deeper and deeper, threatening to swallow me whole. I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever feel good ever again.

I got Mom and Deborah both gift certificates to a spa. I told them that they could go and get pampered and relax and spend time together before Deborah had to go back. I got hugs and kisses that felt much worse than they should have. Every time a hand was laid on me, it wasn't Mom's or Deborah's. It was the hands of that _man_. Of _him_.

Deborah got me a book about space. As I opened it, pulling carefully at the wrapping paper, I began to see planets and stars on the cover. My stomach clenched. "If you don't like it, I can always get you something else," Deborah offered immediately. "Mom told me you're not really interested in space anymore, but…"

"No, no, I like it," I said, forcing the corners of my mouth up as far as they would go, but I worried that I looked as nauseous as I felt. "I'll definitely show Eric. I bet he'd like to see it too." I was talking pointlessly, trying to fill the air up with anything that I could so that I wouldn't have to listen to the inside of my head.

I ended up interrupting myself when I saw a bright drop of red splat against the cover.

"Brian, your nose," Deborah started, and I shoved the book at her, smiling, smiling, smiling, as I made my way to the bathroom.

"Every time I think it'll never happen again, it always does," I joked, pressing toilet paper to the nostril.

"Are you all right?" Mom asked, eyebrows knitting together, and I nodded furiously as if I was the one who needed to be convinced.

"I'm fine. You know how it is. It just happens sometimes. It's not a big deal. I'll be fine." I was rambling, I knew I was. I wished that the doubts that hung in between each statement didn't have answers or proof that they were untruths. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to clear my thoughts, but the moment I did, I saw _his_ face, and I saw Neil's face.

We finished opening gifts, ate breakfast, and drank hot chocolate. After sitting in on Deborah and Mom's conversations, adding little answers when addressed, trying not to think about the night before, after hours of that, I finally excused myself to go give Eric his gift.

"I'll be back in a little while," I said. I checked the mail before I drove off. It hadn't been checked in a few days, due to my own neglect. I found a Christmas card from my Dad, which I tossed into the backseat without even opening the envelope. There were a few bills, some cards for Mom, and then I found a card from, of all people, Avalyn.

I opened it, scanning the image of a snowy village with Santa flying over it on the front, lifted the flap and saw a simple "Have a Very Merry Christmas." Underneath, she had written, "I hope the truth continues to serve you well. I'm sorry about what happened. I hope we can still be friends someday. Love, Avalyn."

I sighed and slipped it into the glove box. I thought about maybe calling her or writing back, but my throat went dry when I realized that she would ask me about what I'd learned. I would have to either lie and tell her I'd been abducted or tell her the truth. I wasn't sure which idea was more horrifying.

The last thing was a plain white envelope with my name scrawled across the front in black magic marker. I opened it gingerly and pulled out a piece of notebook paper that had something scratched out over the first half of the paper and at the bottom had the words, "If you need anything I'll always be here for you. All you have to do is ask. ERIC"

Finally, I felt a little bit of relief, even if it was only for a passing moment. I turned it over on the back and discovered in pen, "Meet me at the park tomorrow if you wanna talk about it. You know the one."

* * *

I pulled to a stop just a short distance away from the swing set that Eric had pointed out to me just before my meeting with Neil McCormick. Neil had sold his body at this park. I thought Eric might have been trying to remind me that my life had turned out marginally better than Neil's, and then I thought that he might have been there waiting for Neil.

Eric was standing on the swing's seat, rocking lightly back and forth. He gripped a bottle of some sort of hard liquor with one hand, holding tightly to the chain with the other. His back was to me, and I could hear him humming one of the songs about despair that he liked so much, the kind of songs that were on the cassette tapes I'd bought him for his gift.

"Hey," I greeted nervously. I didn't know how much he knew.

He nearly fell off the swing, spilling alcohol all over the fallen snow. He looked over his shoulder and smiled a genuine smile of relief. "Brian," he said.

I nodded another hello and took a seat on the swing next to his. He sat down as well, kicking tiny snow drifts with the toes of his combat boots. "How are you?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

I looked over at him, planning to give him the "I'm fine" that I'd given to my sister and mother so many times that morning… but when I looked into his eyes, my mouth curved into a hard frown, my vision blurred, and all I could do was shake my head.

He stood and pressed my head to his stomach, stroking my hair like… like Neil had that night.

"Stop," I said, and he did without hesitation, as if he knew how I was feeling about being touched. I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands, sniffed, and asked, in a slightly more controlled voice, "what did Neil tell you about last night?"

"Nothin'," he replied, and I knew he was telling the truth because I knew he wouldn't lie to me. "He never tells me anything. You know that."

"Is he coming here?" I asked, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

Eric shook his head and took a swig out of the bottle. "Doubt it. I didn't tell him to come here. We can go get him if you want to talk to him though."

"No, that's okay…" I said, and he sat back down on the swing. There was a long moment where we just sat there, staring out into the innocent white snow at the playground where innocent children had played. I thought about Neil and how he had waited for men to take him and fuck him for money. I'd thought that a male being a prostitute was weird, but after I met Neil, it seemed apparent from the very moment I'd laid eyes on him. It had almost been like it had been programmed into him since he was a child, like his body was meant to be fondled and kissed and all kind of other things that I didn't want to think of too much. He had a swagger when he walked, a swagger of some kind of experience that I knew he had. The air around him was charged with _sex_, that being the only appropriate word I could come up with to define it. His eyes were dark though, and there was a hollowness in his throat that gave off the impression of someone who had been dropped to the ground and shattered before being glued back together with pieces in the wrong place or just plain missing. I was sure that he didn't know that I could see it, and I was sure that lots of people didn't. I knew though. I _knew_ because I knew what it felt like to be broken. I wondered if anyone would be able to stitch me back together.

"So…" Eric started after the silence had dragged on too long. "Do you want to… you know, talk about it?" He followed the question with another long gulp from the bottle. His voice was already slurring a little.

"Why are you drinking that?" I asked. "Alcohol actually makes you freeze more easily."

He smirked, but it was halfhearted at best. "I like to live dangerously… but seriously, I couldn't drink back at the grannies' place. It's just my X-mas send off to my parents. I feel like someone should be drinking on their behalves. That's what people do when they're depressed and miss people, right?"

"I don't know," I said honestly.

Eric swigged out of the bottle again and then set it into the snow. "I know you're not okay, but do you think you ever will be?"

"I don't know," I said again. "It's like nothing makes sense anymore."

"Yeah," Eric nodded. "I can't begin to understand how it feels… but I imagine it's a lot like how it was when my folks were killed in that car crash. You just never thought it could happen to you, and you're full of grieving and all that unpleasant shit, and you can't even remember what happiness feels like. You feel like your life lost control or meaning or something, and you just want to go to sleep and hope when you wake up that it was all some really shitty dream."

My eyes welled up with tears again. "Kind of," I said. I looked down at my feet which, in my tennis shoes, were starting to go numb. "Oh… I got you these…" I mumbled, changing the subject, and handed him the tapes. "Merry Christmas, Eric."

He smiled, running his fingers over them, reading the track names. "You didn't have to get me anything, Brian."

"Sure I did," I said, smiling, and I wondered how sad it looked by the look on his face in response, "you're my best friend."

He looked like he would cry then too, and then he looked like he wanted to hug me, but instead he just placed a palm on my shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. "That's better than any gift you could have given me, you know? No one's ever said I was their best friend before."

"What about Neil?"

"Neil's best friend is Wendy."

I'd heard some things about Wendy, but at that moment, I was beginning to think it was weird to imagine Neil being close to anyone at all. I figured that Eric considered Neil his best friend, but I knew that Neil probably didn't feel the same way. I wondered why I'd even asked. I thought that maybe I was just enjoying the appreciative gaze Eric was giving me. It made me feel like I was worth… something…

I knew that, even if I never had a good Christmas ever again, I'd definitely want to make sure Eric did. He was the only one who made me feel any good about myself, and, though it may have been selfish, I was more than willing to take him up on the offer of taking anything I needed from Eric. I wanted to keep him around as long as possible.

Forever, if I had to…


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

(Neil McCormick)

I knew Eric was there before I opened my eyes. I had been lying on the bed with my eyes closed for hours, but I wasn't even close to asleep. I hadn't slept on Christmas Eve. I didn't sleep on Christmas Day. The twenty-seventh came and went, and I still didn't fall asleep. Now it was the twenty-eighth, and I was still awake. I was fucking exhausted but still awake.

"How long are you gonna pretend to be asleep?" Eric asked, voice laced with humor but it was weaker than usual.

I opened my eyes and stared down my nose at him. "What do you want?" I asked, folding my hands behind my head and smiling lazily. _Act Naturally_. The phrase passed through my head, and I thought it was weird because why would I have to _act_ natural?

"You didn't come to the park. I left you a note every day for the past few days. Don't you think I have a right to know what happened? Brian won't tell me."

I really wished he hadn't mentioned Brian. I couldn't shake off the image of him with his bloody nose and hopeless, puppy dog eyes. Hearing his name only made his image more vivid in my mind. "Maybe he didn't tell you 'cause it ain't your business, Preston," I offered, but I just didn't have much strength in my voice. I hoped he didn't notice it, but of course he did.

It really wasn't fair that he was so much in love with me. He noticed little details about me that even I would sometimes not. Some people would feel flattered to have so much admiration coming their way, but for me it was nothing more than an added frustration.

That sounded kind of mean…

"C'mon, Neil, can't you tell me _something_ just this once? I'm tired of being in the dark all the time."

I stared at him blankly.

After a minute, he sighed, running a hand over his hair. "Okay… well, can you just tell me if what I think happened is true?" He hesitated, checking the door to make sure it was closed. "Neil… did your coach… you know…"

My eyebrows knitted together. "What part of it ain't your fucking business don't you get?" I asked, clenching my jaw. "Get the hell out. If you want your answers, you can get them from Brian because I don't give a shit."

Actually, I did. I did more than I should. Normally I could take any bad feelings or emotions and shrug them off of my shoulders without so much as a flinch. I could wipe fear or discomfort off of my face with the palm of my hand and be fine. I'd made it a habit and then a skill to not be able to feel anything because to feel something would be a disaster in my line of work.

This though… _this…_ Brian Lackey… I couldn't shake it. I couldn't shake the look on his face or the sounds of his cries as it became so fucking clear that alien abduction was something he should have accepted and just used it as an interesting story to tell for the rest of his nose-bleeding, passing out kind of life. I had never been bothered by what happened to me before, but Brian… when he laid there in my lap, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut, and I felt… bad… really bad… horrible even. Days later, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I couldn't sleep because of it.

Eric waited helplessly for an apology and an explanation that we both knew weren't coming, but after two minutes he shrugged, sighing through his nose, and left. "Fine, be that way. It's not like I expected anything else. At least call me before you go back to New York and say goodbye."

He slammed the door behind him, and all too suddenly the room became just too fucking quiet. A moment passed where I considered getting up and running after him, but that was stupid so I didn't. I didn't need him, and I didn't need anyone else. I was fine.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

I stared up at the ceiling to try to lapse into some sort of sleep, but when I looked up, it reminded me of that time when… so, I turned on my side and found my eyes catching sight of my little league trophy, and that made me think of… so, I turned on my other side and tried so hard not to think about it, but that made the bruise on my face sting, and that stinging bruise reminded me of something else.

I'm fine. I kept saying it in my head. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

I just needed a little bit of time to convince myself that what happened in New York never happened and that Brian Lackey didn't exist. I was sure that once I got back to the city, it would be much easier.

I didn't know why the idea of going back to New York made me feel sick. Maybe I did, actually, but I wasn't about to admit it to myself.

* * *

Wendy called on the twenty-ninth, while I was packing my stuff. "Hey, you ass," she said on the other end of the phone. I glanced at my reflection in a nearby picture frame. The bruise on my face was mostly gone.

"I'm heading back tonight," I told her, knowing that that was what she wanted to know. "You get me anything for Christmas?"

I heard her scoff. "Did you get me anything?"

"Uh…" I paused grinning a little. "Sure I did."

"You never even sent me postcards, so I don't expect anything from you," she said, feigning disappointment. She was so used to me by now. "Yeah, I got you something. I think you're gonna like it."

"I'll take you out to dinner. Promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

She told me about how her Christmas was and how the party at her job had been totally lame but there had been this really hot guy there and… that was about where I stopped listening. I stretched the cord of the phone as far as it could go, slipping into the kitchen to get something to eat. My mom had been pestering me from the moment I got home that I was too skinny and needed to eat more. I grabbed a bar of chocolate and ripped open the packaging with my teeth.

"So, what do you think?" Wendy was saying.

"Uh… yeah, whatever," I replied, biting into the chocolate.

"I knew you weren't listening," she said, but there was a smile in her voice, "you asshole. Why am I friends with you?"

"I don't know."

It slipped out, humorless, completely serious. I wasn't sure where it had come from or why I had said it, but after it had been said there was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"Neil?" she said.

"I gotta finish packing. I'll see you soon." I hung up before I was forced to explain myself because I didn't exactly have an explanation. I gnawed on the chocolate bar, but it suddenly tasted bitter, so I went back into my room and set it down on the dresser.

I lazily rolled clothes into balls and tossed them into my suitcase until my sights caught on to the key-locked drawer I hadn't dared to look into since before I'd left. Even though I knew what was inside, even though I knew it was my stuff, suddenly the sight of it, the thought of it made me feel queasy.

Not to be made a pussy, especially by myself, I unlocked it and pulled it open.

A stash of weed. A pack of cigarettes, only two left. A cassette labeled N. McCormick. A familiar picture of myself as a child. Some porn tapes, some porn magazines. At the bottom of the porn, a porno of a bunch of older dudes with young, young guys that looked so much younger now than they had, and oh God, fucking Jesus_ Christ_, why did they all suddenly look like Brian? I slid it back into the bottom of the pile, trying to ignore the sudden, unexplained shakiness of my hands, and my eyes fell upon the picture of my little league team, and onto the eyes of…

"H-hello?"

I slammed the drawer shut, causing things on top of it to rattle. I turned my head with eyes I was sure were like some sort of wild animal, and there was none other than fucking Brian Lackey. He was standing awkwardly in the doorway of my room in a dark gray sweater, the light gleaming on the lenses of his glasses.

I stared, unsure of what else to do. Finally, I decided to say, "hey."

"Um… you're probably busy. I should just come back later-"

I would have preferred that he did run off with his tail tucked between his legs, but _damn_ if he didn't look so fucking pathetic, so _goddamn fucking pathetic_, that I couldn't just let him run away. He had a reason to be here, I knew it, or he wouldn't have come. He was here to talk about Christmas Eve or of that summer ten years ago or the Halloween two years later. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to hear it again. That summer that had been so precious to me… it had been… tainted. Shattered.

"If you got something to say, say it now. I'm leaving for New York tonight."

My stomach twisted. I swallowed and tried to display as little caring as possible.

"Oh… well…" Brian paused, looked up at the ceiling and down at his feet. I thought for a minute he was going to chicken out and leave, and then he asked me a question.

It wasn't the question I'd been expecting.

"Um… were you… Were you really mugged on your way to the airport?"

I blinked a couple of times, and he seemed to get even more nervous when my eyebrows knitted together.

"I mean," he jumped back in, voice cracking a little in his panic, "Eric, he told me about what you did for a living… just before you came back, I mean… and so I thought that maybe… Well, I don't know what I thought."

I dug a cigarette out of my pocket, realizing it was the last one, and I thought about opening the drawer again to get out the two left inside, but immediately I decided that that was a bad idea. I lit it and hoped my hands weren't shaking. I sat down on the edge of the bed and offered him a puff.

"Oh, I don't… I mean… I…" he stammered for a long moment, sighed, and sat down as far from me on the mattress as possible. He took the cigarette, carefully making sure to avoid even brushing a finger against mine. He ended up in a pathetic coughing fit and handed it back.

I would have found it funny if I didn't find it so fucking sad. He was so young, so young, so _young_.

And then I remembered that he was my age, and that left me even more confused.

A long pause, and then he said, "So… were you?"

"Was I what?" I asked. I had forgotten his question when my thoughts had distracted me. I really did need to get some sleep, I thought.

"Were you mugged?"

I opened my mouth to spew out a magnificent lie, the ones I had gotten so good at telling throughout my life, but as I did, it all came flooding back to me. The water, the pain in my head, the blood…

_Take it all, Slut._

"Neil?"

I realized I was staring at him, and I couldn't tell what my expression had become, but if it was anything like his, I had a problem. "What does it matter what happened?" I asked, and even I didn't recognize the lack of everything in my voice. "You and me, we don't know each other. We're not friends or any kind of shit like that."

Brian's eyebrows dropped. His lips parted slightly. "But…"

"You're not any different from any of the other guys I've fucked," I said, and even I thought it was a horrible thing to say. There was no similarity with the burly jackasses I'd found myself in bed with that paid me or didn't and that little scared eight year old boy that I'd helped ra… that I'd helped… that I'd…

I shut my eyes tight, feeling a headache working its way in.

"Neil?" Brian said again, and his voice was less sure now than ever. Maybe he didn't believe what I had said, but it didn't matter if he did or not.

"What, are you concerned for my _safety_ or some shit?" I asked, forcing on a cocky smirk. I reminded myself that the coke had run out of my system before even coming to Hutchinson, so I couldn't figure out where the defensive paranoia was coming from. I didn't like being so unfamiliar with myself all of a sudden. I'd always been so sure of everything, and then this little, pathetic kid had come into my life and fucked it all up. I hated him. I hated Brian Lackey, and I hated everything that he stood for in my life.

"S-sort of," he answered, quiet and awkward as always. The only time I'd ever heard him raise his voice was that night in my lap. I imagined he didn't let himself feel much. I could understand the feeling. "Sorry… I guess I just feel like… I should know you better…"

I could get that too, I guessed. I was the first one to kiss him, the first one to give him a blow job, to do all kinds of things that should have been wonderful first things in his life that I'd gone and done before he wanted it. He could have grown up a completely different person if it hadn't been for that one time in the summer.

"If you want someone to sympathize with about not knowing every fucking thing about me, talk to Eric," I said bitterly, handing him the ignored cigarette and getting down on the floor to zip up my suitcase. I couldn't take my eyes off of that drawer, key still stuck in the lock.

"I shouldn't have come… I'm sorry. I won't bother you again," he mumbled, setting the cigarette in the ashtray next to the bed, even though the cigarettes had been put out on the nightstand because my spare change had taken up residence in the ashtray.

He left. I'd wanted him to leave so badly that I'd taken a leaf out of Eric's book and willed it with my eyes. Now that he was gone, I'd gotten what I wanted, but I didn't feel better at all.

For some reason, I wanted him to come back.

Maybe it was because without him, all I had was the familiar faces in the drawer and my own solitude.

And I still couldn't sleep.

* * *

I passed out.

It was January 2nd, and I was in the middle of a shift at the sub shop, and I just… dropped like a lead balloon. I woke up after a few seconds with the manager and the other guy I was working with, some dumb fucker with red hair named Frankie, hovering over me.

"McCormick," the manager, Mr. Creary said, and he was lifting my head off of the floor as if to check and make sure I didn't bust it open. I was pretty sure there wasn't any blood, but I was still dazed. "You all right there, son?"

I wanted to spit in his face and tell him that I wasn't his goddamned son, but I was having a hard enough time getting my thoughts straight that I didn't want to try with my words and actions.

"M'okay," I managed to mumble as he pulled me to my feet, and Frankie pressed his hands against my back to make sure I didn't topple over again. My head lolled forward, chin pressing against my chest a couple of times. I was feeling a little better than I had been before I crumpled.

Mr. Creary handed me a glass of water. I sipped at it weakly, looking around at the surprised faces of the customers that Frankie was already back to tending to. "Do I need to call a doctor?" Mr. Creary asked.

"No… no, I just need some sleep," I said. "I think I'm sick."

"Do you need someone to drive you home?" he asked, and I was quickly growing agitated by his questions. The headache that had slid inside my skull the day I left Hutchinson had done nothing but get worse since. I couldn't shake it off, and I couldn't get to sleep, and I was beginning to think that Wendy was catching on that something was wrong.

I walked home in a haze. The way was longer than it should have been, but after that night, I couldn't take the same route again. That paranoia hung around me, reminding me that _he_ might be there again. I found myself staring into the windows of every car that passed me by, sick with fear that it might be him. I'd never been scared of anyone, but him… fuck.

The stairs were intimidating, and I hated that our building didn't have an elevator. I sucked it up and climbed them before forcing my way through the stuck door and collapsing onto the couch.

I shut my eyes.

_SLUT_.

My eyes snapped back open.

Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. I kept saying it to myself. Go to sleep. You need to sleep. Please, for the love of God, GO TO SLEEP.

At some point, my body seemed to listen because I found myself in a familiar park in the hot, hot summer of Hutchinson, Kansas. Around me were the murky renditions of every john I'd ever fucked, faces blending together in some bizarre little mish-mash of things I remembered from one person to another. They were all staring at me with colorless eyes, and the heat was so hot that I could feel my clothes and hair sticking to me.

And suddenly, the air became thick with more than heat. Tension wound up my spine and before I could even brace myself I was tackled by all of them, and they were ripping my clothes off of me while my sweat and blood mixed into the dirt, and suddenly they weren't all blurry faces, and all the hands were touching me all over, and a voice whispered in my ear, "_Here we go_."

_SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT_

I gasped, shooting up from the couch. My heart was thudding so heavily against my ribcage that I thought for a minute that it might just burst through. I barely managed to scramble to the bathroom before I puked my guts out.

I leaned back against the wall when I was done and stared up at the ceiling at all of the speckly, sparkly things. "Fuck you," I managed to croak out, and I passed out again.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

(Brian Lackey)

Neil was gone. He came into my life, sent a wrecking ball of truth crashing through every one of my bones, and left. I was alone with the responsibility to pick the pieces back up and resume life as if it hadn't been completely changed, muddled, pissed on, ruined, and destroyed. I wanted to tell Eric, but I knew he wouldn't understand. There was no way he _could_ understand. Neil had been the only one who could get it, but now I didn't feel like even he got it. He had fucking _liked_ it. He had told me himself. He had been my only hope, my only source for sanity in my crazy, fucked up life, and he'd let me down. I was no different than the miscellaneous other guys he'd had sex with for money or fun or whatever reason he did. That was another thing he'd told me himself.

I don't know why I had expected any less.

The house felt empty as soon as Deborah had gone, leaving me alone with my mother until classes began on the eighteenth. I felt smothered by my mother's presence though, knowing that she didn't know, and not wanting her to know, but sort of wishing that she did know just so I would have someone to comfort me and…

I spent most of my time locked up in my room. I slept a lot, but most of the time I woke up from horrible nightmares that were much too clear now that I knew the truth. I sometimes wet the bed again, and I almost always got a nosebleed. I'd cry sometimes, but I learned how to keep it quiet so that Mom wouldn't hear. Most of the time the crying spells were in the middle of the night anyway. After a particularly vivid dream where I remembered tasting that man on my mouth, I threw up and threw up until I was out of juices and crumpled up on the floor in pain. Mom was at work that night, so I sobbed loudly until it stopped hurting.

I couldn't keep living this way, I knew… but what else was I supposed to do? I couldn't make it go away any more than I could change it.

I think that may have been the worst part.

Mom was at work, and it was snowing again. I made myself a sandwich and sat down in front of the television. Right then, there was a rapping on the door. I got up and answered it.

Eric stood there with a smile, shivering. "Hey," he greeted, trying not to let his teeth chatter. "How are you doing?"

"I'm getting by," I said, wondering how true it was. "Come inside."

I didn't have to tell him twice. He stomped the snow off of his boots on the rug and tossed his damp coat and scarf over a chair. "I thought I'd come by and check up on you since I hadn't heard from you since Christmas. I love those tapes by the way-"

I cut him off with a laugh that sounded a little bitter. "I'm not sick. You don't have to check up on me like I am."

He worried his bottom lip under his teeth. "I didn't mean it like that."

"It's okay," I assured him, shutting the door and locking it. I was always locking doors these days. Little River wasn't a dangerous town, considering how small and quiet it was, but I was compelled to make sure that whatever room I was in, no one could get inside unless I allowed them.

I wondered if Neil locked his doors.

"Do you want half of my sandwich?" I asked, gesturing to the half-forgotten, completely uneaten meal I had just set down on the coffee table.

"Oh, uh, sure," he nodded and sat down nearly simultaneously with me. "So… um…"

I bit into the sandwich, and the peanut butter caused it to stick to the roof of my mouth. I swallowed. "How are your grandparents?" I asked.

"Same as always, of course… How's your mom?"

"Good. Seeing Deborah really put her in good spirits."

There was a long moment of silence where we ate and stared at the blank television screen as if hoping the other would turn it on to drown out how loud the silence was.

"Well, um… listen," Eric started. "I didn't really know what to get you for Christmas, so I thought that maybe you and I could go out to a store or something, and you could pick something out, and I'll buy it for you."

I closed my eyes for a minute, trying to think about some kind of positive for Christmastime… but all I saw was the color blue and felt that aching in my whole body, like something had festered and died there, and I worried it might be my soul.

When I opened my eyes again, words came out of my mouth. I hadn't planned to say them, but they came out just the same. "I want to go to New York. I want to go to New York before school starts back."

Eric's eyebrows rose. "What?"

"You and me, we'll drive to New York. We'll go there, and I'll finish my business with Neil."

"You have business to finish with Neil?"

I stared at him, or rather, stared through him. "I think so."

"I don't know if I can afford to drive us to New York… I mean, hotel rooms, food… gas…"

"Don't worry about that," I assured him. "I've got some money saved up from the summers I mowed people's grass. I think it'll be enough, if you're willing to throw in a little bit."

"We could just buy plane tickets."

"No," I said, almost cutting him off. "No… I need the drive… I need the time to think up what I'm going to say."

"Well… look," Eric said. "It's stupid to go rushing off to New York before you're sure. I'll take you to New York, but not right now. We'll save our money up some more, shovel snow and shit, really be sure we can afford it… We'll go in March, during Spring Break. If you need to talk to Neil, you'd better be real goddamn sure of what you're going to say, or he isn't going to listen to you. Please, just trust me on this."

I didn't want to, but I nodded weakly and decided that maybe Eric was right. After all, he was in a better state of mind than I was.

I admitted, however, "I'm not sure about this… I don't know if I can make it to March like this…" I buried my face in my hands and sighed, exhausted. He rubbed my back sympathetically and then seemed to remember that I didn't like to be touched and pulled away.

"You know I've got your back, Brian, no matter what… if you want to talk, I'm right here. I just don't want you to go and make any rash decisions. I don't want you to get hurt… not anymore."

I looked at him. "You know what happened to me…" I whispered as if the words, should they be uttered, would cause the room to burst into flames.

"I… have an idea of what happened, but… neither of you will tell me…" Eric said hesitantly, and he was staring at the wall. "I understand. I mean… it really isn't any of my business, so I'll try to stay out of your way, and I won't ask anymore, but…"

"Doesn't it fucking disgust you?" I asked, feeling a grimace on my lips, watching his image blur in my eyes.

"What he did does…" he nodded, jaw set… and then he finally made eye contact with me. "…but you don't."

I hugged him, not caring that my tears or the blood from my nose was ruining his shirt, and he didn't seem to care either. It was just nice to get some sort of halfway understanding, or at least some words of comfort. I never got any of that from Neil McCormick.

I couldn't help but wonder if that was what was compelling me to go find him in New York… if I wanted him to look at me, really _look_ at me and realize what he had done and feel bad for me. Something about his face, the face that I'd wanted to know in order to give me the truth and the comfort of knowing the truth… I hated his face. I wanted to see him suffer. He'd liked it. He'd fucking _liked_ it. He'd let it happen to me and didn't even remember who I was. I wanted him to hear it again. Again. Again, again, again. I wanted it to run through his mind on a loop of what had been done to me so he could really and truly understand what he had done to me, and what it turned me into… how much it fucked me up.

He had to know.

* * *

(Neil McCormick)

I snorted coke off the sink in a public bathroom.

After work, I had spotted a drug dealer in the alleyway, the same one he was usually in, and out of impulse, I bought a dime bag. I hadn't snorted since that john had made me, and I didn't really do coke back in Hutchinson, but if I wasn't going to be able to sleep, I figured I might as well have the energy to stay awake.

Well, that wasn't completely true. I had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep every once in a while, before I was jolted out by nightmares. The nightmares got worse and worse every night it seemed, and I just didn't want to deal with them anymore, so I snorted and felt awake and alert almost instantly. Awake and alert and just… better. I felt like… myself again.

Wendy noticed.

"Hey, you seem to be in a better mood," she said, kicking the door shut when she got home. I had cleaned the whole apartment, and that also didn't go unnoticed. "Since when do you clean? Did you do something bad?"

"I got bored," I said, smirking. I had actually had too much energy to sit on my ass, so yes, I did clean… not that the apartment looked remarkably better or anything. "How was work?"

"Shitty," she said, plopping down on the couch next to me. "Glad to see you in better spirits though. You've been fucking mopey since you got back from Hutchinson. Do you really miss your mommy that much?"

She was teasing me, I knew. "I don't miss anything about Hutchinson. Going back just reminded me how much I hated that place." It came out meaner than I'd expected.

She rubbed my shoulder. "You don't miss Eric or your mom?"

"No." Eric reminded me of Brian. Mom… I missed the hell out of my mom, but whenever we came back together I remembered that she wasn't who I'd wanted her to be. She'd never be the real 'Mom' character that I always fantasized her as when we were far away. I knew she loved me, but… it just wasn't the same.

I remembered how I'd called out to her that night after that john at Brighton Beach…

"Neil?"

"You hungry? I still owe you dinner. I already ate, but…"

"I'm not starving, but if you want, we can go out. That guy I told you about, Jay, told me about this really cool bar."

I shrugged and went along with the idea. I was high as a fucking kite, and, even though I discovered the route to this bar was on the same route where I'd met Brighton Beach john, I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid of anything.

I was fucking invincible.

It felt nice to be in control again.

* * *

(Wendy Peterson)

Something was _wrong_ with Neil McCormick.

That was a fucking stupid statement. There'd always been something wrong with Neil. I guess it was better to say that something _else_ had happened to him since he left for Christmas.

He'd been doing well. He'd given up hustling (again- let's see how long it lasts this time), and he'd actually listened to me for once and gotten a real job. He'd been smiling more, shutting down less. Sure, he still had some really fucked up perspective, but all in all, it had been an improvement from the Neil McCormick I'd met as a little girl.

Then, he left.

Then, he came back.

I wasn't stupid enough to not see the bruises, but when I asked, he claimed that he'd gotten into a fight back home. Some guy called him a faggot one too many times, he had said. I didn't know if I could believe that. He'd never let that word bother him before. He thought people's negative reactions to his sexuality were funny more than anything.

I also hadn't forgotten about that downtrodden "I don't know" he'd given me on the phone when I'd asked him why we were friends. I didn't mention it though, hoping that I'd just misread him on the phone. Neil was always swallowing his words anyways, so it was hard to tell _what_ he was feeling.

He definitely wasn't well though, not when he came back. That was for sure. He didn't think that I noticed that he hadn't been sleeping much, even though the dark, dark bags under his eyes and the way he hung over his cup of coffee in the morning made it so obvious. He was smoking more too. Frankly, he seemed to have closed himself off even more than he had before, and no matter what I did, I knew he'd deny it from here to the moon. Neil never thought there was anything wrong with him.

He didn't have too much of an appetite when we went out, but I was relieved to see that he was in a good mood… chipper even. He was a talkative life of the party, giving boys and girls alike little flutters in their chest with his smiles. Neil _could_ be charming when he wanted to be. He talked animatedly about all kinds of things, spouting fabulous lies about how his father had been a famous actor and how he had had sex with some famous celebrities when visiting his dad in Hollywood. He talked about how he had drunk and smoked weed with famous musicians, and he was so convincing that even I started to believe him.

I was just happy to see that he was in better spirits… but something was nagging at the back of my skull… I didn't know why, but I still felt like something was _wrong_. I caught him by the arm in the hallway on the way back to the apartment. I was stumbling a bit from too much booze, and he laughed at me. "Need me to carry you over the threshold?" he teased.

"Neil, if you were hustlin' again would you tell me?" I asked, words slurring together. "Promise I won't be mad, but I just wanna know you're bein' careful."

And there it was.

I wasn't sure what _it_ was, but there was this falter in his gaze and in his smile. Bothered… it looked something like bothered.

"I'm not doing that anymore," he said and unlocked the door. "Don't get your underwear in a wad."

Something was _wrong_ with Neil McCormick.

I just didn't know what.

* * *

"Hey, Wendy, can I borrow some cash?"

It was two weeks after the night he'd cheered up when he asked me. I didn't think anything of it, not really. Since he'd quit hustling and took up a minimum wage job, he wasn't exactly bringing in the dough like he had been, and I was sure getting used to a slightly less extravagant spending limit was difficult. I gave him twenty bucks and told him not to spend it all in one place and didn't think about it again.

…until he asked me again, three days later.

"What do you need it for now?"

"Lunch, cigarettes…" he replied, shrugging noncommittally. "Stuff."

"What about your paycheck?"

"I don't get it until next week." He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his wrist, looking around the room.

"Where'd you spend the last one?" I asked.

He seemed to be getting agitated by all the questions. "I don't know. Rent, lunch, cigarettes, stuff," he grumbled.

"You may need to lower your expensive tastes, Neil," I said with a sigh, digging a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet.

"Yeah, whatever," he practically spat back, snatching it before I could even get it completely out of the pocket. "I'll pay you back."

No, he wouldn't.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

(Neil McCormick)

The cocaine made me feel fucking fantastic, but it also made me sick… like, really fucking sick. I was puking my guts out every day I did it, which wasn't _every_ day because I wasn't some fucking addict or anything. I just did it every once in a while, like every few days or every other day or sometimes not at all for a week. I only took it so I could keep back the nightmares. Usually when I'd come crashing down from the high, I'd smoke a little weed and sleep so heavy that I didn't have nightmares… and I needed to stay up so I could work more anyways.

It wasn't that I needed to work so I could buy more coke. I just needed a place to go every day. The money for the coke was just a perk. It's not like I had anything else to spend my money on… and that shit is expensive, so if I had to borrow money from Wendy sometimes, it wasn't a big deal. I wasn't addicted to it. That shit just cost too much for minimum wage. It was her idea for me to get a "real" job anyway, so she owed me that.

Anyway, the coke still made me sick… so, I figured it was for the best if I just didn't eat to avoid the nasty vomit taste. When I was high, I wasn't really hungry anyways. Still, when I started dropping a little weight, Wendy started giving me these long glares, like she was trying to figure out a math problem written on my body.

"Are you okay?" she asked one morning over breakfast. I hadn't snorted any coke that morning, so I actually picked at the cereal.

"Yeah," I said, flashing a quick smile. "Why?"

"I don't know…" I knew as soon as she said it that she would proceed to tell me exactly what she apparently _didn't_ know about. "You've been kind of out of it lately. You're either moping and sleepy or jittery and totally cheerful. You haven't been eating, and you're working all the time, and when I get home you're always awake, so I'm assuming you're not sleeping well either. Neil."

I raised my eyebrows, leaning my cheek against my fist. My spoon swirled cheerios in little circles in the milk.

"Are you doing drugs?" she asked, eyes so intense that I thought she might have been trying to push me backwards mentally.

"Pot," I responded, acting as though she was stupid. I was sure that if Wendy found out about my casual coke habit, she would bitch about how bad for me that was. I'd heard enough of that when I'd been hustling.

Not that she'd been _wrong_ or anything, but that was just one mistake and…

"Well… did something happen back in Hutchinson? You came back different."

"Different how? I don't feel any different," I said. Actually, I felt a lot different… but I couldn't figure out what it was that made me feel different. It felt kind of like betrayal and emptiness. I didn't care… at least, I didn't think I did.

"Um, hello? The way you've been acting is all weird. I thought I just made that clear. C'mon, Neil, you've been totally out in space lately."

She must have noticed the way my eyes widened, or maybe they didn't, and I just paled… or maybe my lip trembled a little. Either way, I must have done something because she started giving me this look, this _look_ that looked way too much like that look she gave me the night she found out about who I was… that Halloween when I'd… the same Halloween when Brian and Coach… and it all came down to Brian, didn't it, because she had said 'out in space' and suddenly I was thinking about him and his obsession with the idea that aliens had abducted him and not something so much worse had happened to him, and when did what happened to me during that summer become something bad and become rape like in the shower in Brighton Beach and…

"Your nose," she said slowly.

I ran a hand across my upper lip and drew it back. Red.

"Neil?"

I couldn't stop staring at the blood because it didn't feel like it was mine anymore. It was the same blood that had come spilling out of Brian that night and that other night and so many of his miserable nights when he couldn't remember.

"Neil, what the Hell…" Wendy started again, but the red was consuming me. Swallowing me whole. All I saw was red.

"FUCK YOU!" I shouted, tipping the table and leaving with the door slamming shut behind me.

* * *

(Brian Lackey)

School went back into session, but I was flunking miserably, mostly because a lot of the time I wouldn't show up. The very first day back, I'd had a Sociology class, and the teacher looked eerily similar to Coach Heider with his moustache and long white teeth. Sure, he was a brunette, and he was too young, but I couldn't _not_ see it. It made me sick, and I spent nearly the entire day in the bathroom, curled up in a ball like a pathetic child.

Mom wasn't happy with my grades.

"What has been up with you lately, Brian? You've been totally disconnected," she said in frustration at the dinner table. My teachers had called her about my poor performance, and the college itself had called her to make sure she knew I hadn't been there.

I stirred the spoon in the potato soup I was preparing us for dinner, not looking at her. "I don't know," I mumbled.

"Is something going on that you're not telling me? I don't feel like I even know you anymore."

I could feel an argument rising in the back of her throat, and I didn't want to argue because I was just too tired. I knew she had a right to be upset, and it wasn't as if her suspicions and frustrations were ungrounded or anything, but…

"I don't know," I said again, unable to come up with anything better. "I guess I'm just tired."

"You've always done so well in school, though. It isn't Eric, is it? Honey, I like Eric, but-"

"Eric's fine, Mom," I said, pausing only momentarily between the second and third word. "Eric's not corrupting me or whatever you're thinking."

"It _is _a little weird how he dresses though, and you've started to dress that way too. I don't really think that I like it."

"It's just _clothes_, Mom. Eric's no one to worry about." Left unsaid was the bitterness I felt about how a clean-cut Coach had been the one she'd needed to worry about and yet none of them ever suspected _him_ of anything.

"I'm not trying to say that Eric's bad, Brian. I'm not saying that."

"Yeah," I said, and apparently I was more raring for a fight than I thought, because I turned then and spat, "but you're implying it, aren't you? You think because he dresses that way that he's doing drugs or drinking or selling himself like those people on T.V."

Actually, that sounded a lot like Neil McCormick.

"Brian," she said sternly, and I backed down a little. It was next to impossible to win an argument against the woman who birthed me, considering she had in fact been the one to give me life… well, her and my dad, but I liked to think that he had never existed.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, going back to stirring my soup, and I guess she felt sorry for me or something because she didn't say anything else about it.

"Well… at least stop skipping class. I'm paying good money for you to go to school there."

"Yes, ma'am…"

I poured the soup into two bowls and sat down with her, and we ate in near silence. "So…" she said after too long. "How is Eric anyway? I haven't seen him around."

"He's been by. We've both been busy. He said his grandma had the flu pretty bad and ended up in the hospital, but she's okay now."

"Well, that's good."

"Yeah… he said something about going to New York for spring break, to see a friend of his, his friend Neil… I thought that maybe I should go with him, you know, so he won't be alone. It's dangerous to drive that far by yourself."

She seemed to consider it for a long moment, skeptical, uncomfortable with the idea. "I don't know if I like the idea of you two making that drive. What if something goes wrong?"

I wanted to tell her that nothing could be more wrong than it already was, but I decided against it. "We'll be fine. You know I can be resourceful. I even learned how to maintenance a car over the summer. We were both going to save up our money so that we'd be okay, and we'll map out our trip, and I'll call you every night we're on the road."

She sighed through her nose in the way that told me she didn't approve. "Well, you're not a kid anymore, so I can't necessarily stop you, now can I? However, I need you to promise me that you'll call me twice a day and if anything goes awry. I also want to talk to Eric's grandparents and make sure that they're okay with this too, all right?"

I nodded, managing a real smile for once. "Yeah, okay. I'll tell him tomorrow."

"Also, I want to talk to this Neil person, make sure he's okay with you guys coming."

I felt my smile drift away from my face, but before she could ask I said, "Oh, well… we were going to surprise him. Eric said that Neil and his friend Wendy started up a band, and their band might have a record deal, so he wanted to surprise them and throw them a congratulation party or… or something." It was a lie, and normally I felt terrible when I lied to my mother.

"Well, can you at least tell me about him?"

I swallowed hard, stirring the soup in my bowl idly. "Oh, you know… You know him. He was on my little league team ten years ago." She raised her eyebrows, but I didn't want to talk about that, so I kept talking. "Eric showed me pictures of him as of recent. He's totally and completely normal. He looks kind of like a rock star though, you know, really good looking, earring, black clothes…" Actually, if I remembered correctly, his earring had been ripped out during his… whatever happened to him.

"Well, that doesn't sound normal," Mom said with a hint of a smile in her voice. "How long has Eric known Neil?"

"Since Eric moved to Hutchinson. They were really good friends. Neil was the best player on the Panthers team."

I couldn't understand why I had brought myself back to the little league team when I'd wanted to avoid it. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention or looking for a way to fill the silence… Maybe it was just because it was always there, lingering on the end of my tongue and in the back of my head as a constant reminder.

"I don't really remember, Brian. That was years ago."

"Oh, well… I mean, I didn't remember either until um… Eric mentioned it."

At that moment, I couldn't remember my parents ever coming to a single one of my games. There was no way she would remember him. It was almost relieving. Almost.

"Well, all right, but I need to talk to Eric about this Neil person."

"Okay."

* * *

(Neil McCormick)

I was sure there was something I was supposed to be doing. I'd felt like that since yesterday when I woke up. I wasn't sure if I didn't remember what it was or if I just didn't care. Wendy hadn't said anything about my blow up at the breakfast table a few days ago… or maybe it was longer than that… but she'd been giving me these long glares ever since, so I made sure to stay out of the apartment as long as possible.

I was curled over a cup of decaf coffee in a little hole in the wall café, trying to take the edge off of my latest hit. My heart was thudding dramatically against my ribcage, and all that blood rushing through my head was making me feel sick. I thought maybe the coffee would help, but it really wasn't.

I sniffed and wiped my nose and made sure there wasn't any blood there. It hadn't bled since that morning at breakfast time, but I was checking every time now, almost obsessively. After that nosebleed, I'd nearly stopped snorting all together… nearly…

I looked up from the pool of dark liquid that looked so black, like some kind of black hole, and surveyed the room. It wasn't long before I met eyes with a guy, older, a little fat, balding. I'd seen him at the hustler bar where I'd used to work, but I'd never gone home with him. He seemed to recognize me too.

I thought about my empty wallet and of my dwindling coke stash and vaguely remembered in the back of my head that I was supposed to be at work hours ago, both today and the day before (so _that's_ what I'd forgotten, I thought).

I licked my lips and gave a very vague smile at the guy, calling him over with my eyes since he'd been basically doing it to me since I'd walked in, I was sure. He casually walked by, hand lingering on the back of my chair, and I waited for him to walk out of the café before following him.

He was smoking a cigarette when I stepped out, the cold air smacking me across the face like I knew Wendy wanted to. I looked the man up and down when he gave me a slight nod and offered me a cigarette. Easy money.

_Easy_.

"How are you?" the man asked.

"Good," I replied, taking the cigarette and lighting it. I had slight tremors in my hands. "You?"

"Good," he said, smiling. His teeth were crooked. "You're a bit jittery."

"Yeah. I guess."

"Would you like some way to get that energy spent?"

This guy was dumb as a fucking rock, I thought. The way he talked and dressed gave off the impression that he was one of those New York business guys, the type who had shit to do and couldn't waste too much time in pleasure… the kind of guy who drank his coffee or snorted coke to stay up all night so he could keep working and the kind of guy who would send out a whore as soon as he was done with it. Perfect, as usual. I shrugged noncommittally though, playing a little coy, and said, "Sure."

It seemed like no time and we were in his car. Even less time passed and we were at his apartment. I slowly removed my jacket as he shut the door with a quiet thud.

He had a nice place, I thought. It wasn't my style, of course, but he had a lot of weird art all over the walls, which usually meant that there would be some pretty good money.

Click.

I looked back. "What are you doing?" I found myself asking before I was able to stop myself.

The guy, somewhat annoyed, raised an eyebrow and said, "Locking the door."

"Why?" I _was_ jittery.

"It's New York," the man scoffed. "Bedroom is this way."

I followed, more hesitantly than I realized apparently because he placed a hand on my back between my shoulder blades in order to make me go faster. I kept looking back at the door.

_Escape_.

I didn't know where it came from, but the word lingered there for a second.

"I don't got all day, kid," the man grumbled, and I turned numbly to see that we were in his room, and he was removing his shirt. His sheets were satin, fucking _satin_. "Now, I've got two hundred and about an hour, so let's do this, all right?"

"Ah… uh… Yeah," I mumbled. I started undoing my shirt and found that the tremors were worse.

That wasn't right.

I shouldn't have been shaking that much. I hadn't snorted that much.

"Drop your pants," the man said, and my eyes flew up to his like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming semi.

"What?" Maybe it wasn't just jitters.

"What, are you deaf or something? I've got less than a fucking hour!" the man growled and pushed me up against the wall, pulling my pants down for me. "Get a move on, kid, we're on the clock."

He shoved me, hard. My head knocked against the wall a bit, and he kissed me sloppily, teeth knocking against mine, hands roaming all over.

There were little noises that sounded like words, and then they were words, and then I realized that they were coming from me and that they were "stop. Wait, stop. Stop. STOP. _STOP_!"

The man pulled back, partly confused but mostly pissed the hell off. "What?" he barked.

I was dizzy. It was hard to catch my breath. My stomach turned over and over. There were little weird noises, whimpering noises like a puppy caught in a fucking bear trap… and those were coming from me too.

"Hey," the man said, slightly more gentle or maybe more cautious, "you okay?"

_SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT_

I shut my eyes, trying to will away the nausea, but then I was feeling phantom pains in my ass and forehead and oh God, there was blood everywhere, and it hurts so bad, and please stop hitting me, and fuck that water is cold, and it hurts so bad, and please stop, please stop, there's some things I don't do, it hurts so bad, please stop, slut, slut, slut, slut, take it all, you slut, and I want my mom, and

I vomited all over the man's carpet. He barely managed to jump out of the way.

"I gotta go," I stammered weakly, stumbling as if I was drunk down his hallway, pulling my pants up. "I'm sorry. I gotta go. I gotta go. I'm sorry." I couldn't seem to stop saying that.

"Go? You fucking made a mess of my carpet, and you think you can just leave?" the man complained, racing after me, and his footsteps were so loud that I thought I was going to puke again. "You came here to do a job, you know!"

I didn't know why he was telling me that. I knew that. I couldn't believe he still wanted me with vomit on my breath and all down the front of my shirt. "I'm sorry. I'm sick. I gotta…"

He slammed a hand against the door when I tried to open it, sending it slamming back shut, and then there was a yelp.

That was also me.

I turned back to him, and he looked like he was vibrating until I realized that it was me shaking. I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was going to die.

Kind of like that night in Brighton Beach.

And suddenly it was sputtering out of me pathetically, "please, oh God, please don't kill me. I'm sorry. I'm sick." I was dropping to my knees and pulling at his belt. "I'll suck you off, just let me go."

The entire time I fucked him with my mouth, the man stared at me as if I was some creature from another planet. I probably would have been looking at me weird too. After all, I couldn't stop crying and gagging.

I went on a binge that afternoon and afterward came crashing down harder than I ever had that night. Wendy was at work, or maybe she was with that guy Jay that she had been talking about. I didn't know or care. I collapsed into my bed, sinking heavily into the mattress and slept and slept and slept like I was never going to wake up.

I kind of wished that I wouldn't.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

(Wendy Peterson)

I couldn't find Neil anywhere. I looked in all of his usual haunts and found not a single trace of him. The barista at the café he seemed to frequent as of lately mentioned that he'd been by earlier that day, but he hadn't seen him since. Technically, he was supposed to be at work, but he hadn't shown up there either.

As soon as I got back to the apartment, I was about ready to call the police. I had the phone in my hand when I noticed his bedroom door was cracked. It was the only place I hadn't checked.

There was definitely a lump defined on that mattress that was shaped similarly to Neil. I stepped in slowly. He wasn't moving, and I couldn't help but lean over him to make sure he was still breathing.

I didn't know why I had the fear that he wouldn't be, and I think that was what scared me the most. I no longer knew anything about Neil… at least, I didn't feel that way.

His breath was coming out in little, shallow huffs, barely noticeable. I placed a hand on his shoulder and couldn't help but shake him. "Neil," I whispered fiercely, "hey, wake up."

He didn't respond right away, so I shook him a bit more fiercely, and finally he snorted and started to wake up.

"What? What is it?" he murmured, barely comprehensible with his voice still heavily laced with sleep. He seemed to barely be able to lift his head, but I was still able to make out an obvious dark line trailing down his upper lip, even in the dark. His eyes were already starting to flutter closed again, so I squeezed his arm.

"Where the Hell have you been?"

He sniffed, fighting to keep his head up. "Right here."

"You never sleep in here. You always sleep on the couch."

"Sorry," he said, sounding somewhat agitated. "Can I go back to sleep now?"

"No, no, you cannot go back to sleep because I need to talk to you."

He grumbled and rolled over on his back, leaning on his elbows. He sighed through his nose, and I could tell that he just wanted me to yell at him or whatever and get it over with so that he could go back to sleep… Might as well give him what he wanted.

"You were supposed to go to work today, and I couldn't find you anywhere. I was about to call the police. I thought you'd been picked up and carried away by some crazy motherfucker."

He rubbed his eyelids with his thumb and index finger. "That's fucking stupid."

"No, it isn't!" I shouted, not expecting my voice to start rising so fast. "It isn't fucking stupid because it's totally likely when it's you, McCormick!"

A grimace formed on his face, like he was thinking about something awful, but instead of talking about it, he instead croaked, "If you're just gonna yell at me, can it wait? I'm fucking tired."

"God damn it, Neil!" I screamed, thinking that punching him would be a really good idea at that moment… maybe strangling him… "For God's sake, will you just fucking talk to me for one god damn second? I've been worried sick about you, and you don't even fucking care!"

He glanced over at the door, looking anywhere but at me, of course. "I don't…" he shut his eyes for a moment, and for a second I swore I could hear his thoughts saying, _just breathe_. It wasn't something Neil would say. "You were the dumbass who didn't check my room and just assumed I went missing. You don't think I can handle myself?"

"It's not that. I'm not saying that," I said, though admittedly, I sort of was. "Neil…" I sighed. "You know how much I care about you… I can't help but worry about you because of all the things you do. You're not necessarily _careful_ with yourself, no matter how much I want you to be. I can't help but think you're out on the street hustling again, or maybe you're buying drugs out of a back alley, or you could be starting a fight with someone who doesn't deserve it or… there's any number of things."

"I'm fine."

"Are you?" It was more accusatory than I'd expected.

He seemed a bit taken aback by it too. He blinked a couple of times and swallowed and sniffed and said, "Yeah."

"You've dropped at least ten pounds which on a skinny guy like you is really obvious. You're either sleeping all the time or up and jittery for days. You're closed off and distant and smoking all the time; you're skipping work and disappearing for hours and going into these crazy fits. You have nosebleeds and red-rimmed eyes; I've heard you puking. I've heard you _screaming_, Neil… _screaming_ in your sleep."

He stared, obviously unaware that he'd been doing such a thing, and I swore for a minute that his lower lip was trembling.

"Please," I begged, and I felt tears welling pathetically in my eyes. "_Please_ tell me that you're being careful. Please… just tell me what's going on. Let me help you, Neil, please. I don't even feel like I know you anymore."

For a split second I thought he would tell me… but that second passed, and I saw that stony expression appear on his face again. He'd closed me off. "I'm fine… I'm just going through some stuff. Don't worry about it."

"What stuff?"

"It's nothing for you to worry about…" he said, sinking back into his mattress, obviously done with the conversation.

I went and got a wet washcloth. He was already asleep when I came back in. I wiped the dried blood off of his upper lip, kissed his forehead, and left.

I didn't want to be upset with him, but I was, so I went and stayed with Jay for the night.

* * *

Neil didn't get out of bed except to piss for the next two days. I actually had to call into his work for him, claiming that he was sick, and surely he was sick with _something_. He was like a ghost in the apartment…

And then, four days after he'd curled up and basically died, he got up and left before I even woke up. He was gone all day and came back with his energy and his jitteriness restored. I did notice that he kept getting up to check the lock on the door, but he claimed that he wasn't. I also noticed he kept sniffing and wiping his nose, checking for blood when he thought I wasn't paying attention.

By that point, I was sure I knew what was going on with him, but it wasn't like I could accuse him of it or stop him. When Neil was on his path to self-destruction (which he'd basically been sprinting down his whole life), there was nothing I could do to stop him.

He was gone again in the middle of the night and didn't come back even that morning. He was probably out at some club, partying… or maybe he was hustling again…

Since I had the day off that morning, I decided to clean up, since there was nothing better to do. I figured that I was kind of halfway hoping that Neil would come stumbling in as high as a kite with powder on his nose so that I could force him to admit it… not that it would make any difference. I knew he would just claim that he wasn't addicted and that it was no big deal. Maybe I just wanted another excuse to yell at him.

I dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned the toilet and the sinks. I picked up all of my dirty clothes and threw them into a basket and then went into Neil's room to do the same. Maybe Neil didn't sleep in there usually, but his shit was constantly littered on the floor. He was almost never in there, so he never really cared to take notice of the piles of dirty clothes or old food that was just left sitting out or the crumpled paper and other trash that seldom made it to the trashcan.

I started picking up the clothes and tossing them into the basket, checking the drawers too because he tended to toss shirts and underwear back in there too. I thought that perhaps the best thing for me to do was actually wash all of it, but I couldn't really afford it. I had pretended for a little while that I didn't notice some of my money mysteriously disappearing, instead choosing to hide it somewhere where Neil couldn't find it.

Dirty shirt, dirty sock, another dirty sock, another dirty sock, a pair of dirty jeans… all of them went into the basket. I tugged on the bottom drawer and started tossing in balled up shirts that I was sure were dirty because at least I knew how to fold things and…

My hand lingered at the very back of the drawer for a long second, and I squinted my eyes because what was that?

I pulled out what I discovered was a shirt and slowly unrolled it from its ball… to discover that it was covered in blood.

For a second, I couldn't breathe.

I shoved it back into its corner and slammed the drawer shut and didn't come back to the apartment for the rest of the day… and Neil wasn't the only one who didn't sleep that night.

* * *

(Eric Preston)

March came far too soon for my tastes. I'd hoped and hoped that Brian would start to mend somehow (even though that was surely asking a whole lot) and cancel the trip. I didn't want to go at all. As much as I was crazy about Neil, after that night I felt like I would have been perfectly happy with never seeing him again. I wanted him to fade away from my life so that I could get over him and move on and not spend all my time feeling tortured by my feelings. It seemed that no matter how much I was able to remind myself that he wasn't any kind of prize, that he was actually someone that a normal person would want to keep very far away from, the moment I saw him all of that was forgotten about. He couldn't help that he was absolutely fucking beautiful, and neither could I. Maybe I was just shallow.

Still, even with the fear that I'd go stumbling back into that fall if I were to see him again, I couldn't tell Brian no… because the fact of the matter was that I was a little bit in love with him too.

Yeah, that was pretty messed up, I thought. I guess I was attracted to damaged goods or something, or maybe I was just a masochist, crazy about boys I knew I would never have… but damn it, when it came to Brian, I couldn't help it either. Everywhere that Neil went wrong, Brian had gone in a different direction. Maybe it wasn't right, but it was a different kind of wrong, a sweet, innocent, little brokenhearted kind of wrong, and while I wanted Neil to touch me and hold me and treat me special, I wanted to do all of those things for Brian… Brian, who I could never touch or hold or treat special…

Brain wasn't particularly good-looking, not like Neil. He was actually awkward in (to me) the best possible way. He was what most people would consider kind of a nerd, someone no girl (or boy) would give a second glance at, which I was sure must have been some kind of unconscious defense mechanism because of what happened… If someone were to really look at him, I was sure that they would notice like I noticed how beautiful a smile he had and how bright his eyes were… emphasis on were… Ever since that night, his eyes had been so dark, I barely recognized them.

Maybe that was another reason why I didn't want to see Neil. There was a part of me that was unforgivably mad at him for breaking Brian. I knew it wasn't really his fault, but while Neil had been fucking around in New York for a few months, I had been getting to know the shy, awkward, beautiful person that Brian was. Where Neil had batted me around as his plaything (not that I didn't willingly oblige), Brian had nestled into my heart and really made me feel wanted (at least platonically), and I couldn't stop adoring him because of that. He even admired little old me, trying to dress like me and speak like me and do what I did. Imitation really was the sincerest form of flattery, at least when someone as sweet as Brian was doing it. He'd opened up to me about things he didn't like to share with anyone else, and I in turn had done the same…

…but even then, there was a place only Neil could go, a place that he would not reveal to me, no matter how many times I assured him that I wouldn't think less of him. It wasn't as if I didn't know. I wasn't stupid, after all… but I wouldn't bring it up, I wouldn't force him to talk about it unless he was ready.

I was just a slave to him really, just like I was a slave to Neil, and that was why I was packing up my clothes to head to New York.

Brian was waiting for me when I pulled up, his mom and he both standing on the porch. I got out with a smile, sniffing at the breeze and shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans. "Hello, Lackey family," I greeted, trying to remain as chipper as possible since I certainly didn't want Brian to know how much I was dreading a trip that apparently meant so much to him.

Brian's mom hugged me, and momentarily I just savored the feeling of a mom hug since I got so very few of them now. Sure, it would never be like my own mom's hugs, but it still felt nice and warm. I also guiltily thought that if she knew how I felt about her son, she would probably prefer to bash my head in.

Brian was smiling, but he looked bad… kind of ragged, really, like he'd been facing down a nightmare… Actually, that was pretty much what he was doing. He'd lost a little weight, making his clothes appear a little baggy, and his eyes were lined with dark circles he'd started to try to hide with eyeliner that really didn't suit him. He was still beautiful in a 'look but don't touch' kind of way.

"You promise to take good care of Brian for me?" Brian's mom asked me, giving my face a gentle touch that was much more motherly than the one Ms. McCormick would give my face, though it was still just as nice.

"Of course I will," I assured her. "I won't let him out of my sight."

She hugged me again, and I kept the vague smell of gunpowder and oranges in my nose for as long as I could. "Make sure he calls me every day you're on the road, and while you're in New York. Don't pick up anybody because you can't trust anyone these days."

I nodded, smiling, smiling, smiling. This was, to her, a fun little vacation for two best friends. She didn't know the connotations of this visit. She didn't have any idea. I couldn't help but resent her a little bit for that, though I still liked her.

I turned to Brian then, still smiling, and he smiled back with a watery grin. "You ready to go?" I asked, clenching and unclenching my fingers in my pockets.

"Yes. I think so," he said, quiet as always.

"New York awaits then," I said, hoisting one of his bags into the back of my Gremlin while he followed with the other one.

He gave his mom an awkward hug goodbye, and she kissed his cheek, causing his eyes to well uncomfortably. "Call me every night," she reminded.

"I will," he said, nodding to convince her.

"Be careful."

"I will."

"I love you."

"I… I love you too."

After another hug that seemed even more unbearably uncomfortable to him, we climbed into the car and pulled out of the driveway.

As soon as we were out on the road and out of the neighborhood, I lit up a cigarette. I'd been trying to quit since Christmas, but now seemed like a good time. Music was blaring from the speakers, though it had a kind of annoying buzz from the back left one that had been blown.

"So," I said, smoke pouring from my lips, "do you want to stop and get something to eat before we get out of town or stop later?"

"I'm not hungry right now," he said, shrugging. "Later is fine… unless you're hungry."

"I'm fine."

Cue awkward silence.

"So…" I started again, not really knowing where it was going.

"I don't know yet," he interrupted, paused and added, "what I'm going to say… to him…"

"No big deal. You've got plenty of time. It'll probably take us a couple of days to get there, after all."

"…yeah… I gotta admit, I feel like I should have been ready by now, but… well, maybe now I'll be able to get my thoughts together since my mom's not around. I feel like maybe the closer I get to him, the clearer it'll become… kind of like before…"

"Well, I hope you'll find what you want to say. I'll back you up if you need it."

"I know…"

It was literally painful to watch him with his innocence ripped away from him. He was like a flower that had been jerked from the earth, slowly wilting away, but that was really just me waxing poetic again. I wanted so badly to tell him that I loved him, but I knew it wouldn't make him feel better. I placed my hand on his shoulder, squeezed, and let go, putting the cigarette back to my mouth.

A long stretch of silence passed between us, and I watched him stare down into his alien notebook, thinking desperately of where to start when it came to Neil… and I punched him in the arm.

"Punch buggy!" I shouted, and my heart could have melted when he smiled and laughed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

(Neil McCormick)

It was March, and I was back in the café, fighting off the chills and a headache, when I came to a horrifying realization that rattled me straight to the core.

That john… from Brighton Beach… What if he had some kind of STD… like herpes, or hepatitis, or HIV?

A second later I was in the bathroom, puking until I was sure I had puked all of my organs out, leaving me nothing but bones and regret. I leaned my forehead against the porcelain of the toilet, gasping and choking for air. I wiped at my nose and, while I didn't find blood there, I found that my cheeks were wet.

Someone was pounding on the door. It brought forth all sorts of panic in me that I couldn't swallow no matter how hard I tried. I found myself pressing my back up against the wall farthest from the door, just waiting for a knife to come through the lock and the door to bang open and for him to come barreling in to…

I felt bile rising in the back of my throat again, and I shut my eyes tight and tried to take in a few deep breaths to make it go away.

It wasn't fair… the coke had made these feelings go away… but now it wasn't working. It wasn't working. It wasn't working it wasn't working it wasn't working it wasn't

BAM BAM BAM. "Yo, buddy, you gonna take all day in there or what?"

I opened my mouth to tell whoever it was to fuck off, but all that came out was a pathetic gurgle. I swallowed and tried again, and it came out in a whimper, and my vision felt like it was dimming, and I was afraid I was going to pass out right there, sliding down that nasty wall, and then I thought maybe, just maybe I would die there.

_I'm tired of it. I want to dream about something else for a change_.

_Here we go_.

I opened my eyes, still listening to the man pound on the door. I slowly unfolded myself from the floor, flushed the toilet, and stumbled to the door. I opened it when I was sure he had pulled his fist away.

It was a young guy dressed in all black that seemed to think he was some sort of badass with the spiked hair. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Sid Vicious," I spat at him. It was hard to ignore the look on his face though… he was looking at me like he'd seen something… horrible.

"Hey, are you okay, dude?" he asked.

"Fuck off," I said. There it was.

* * *

(Brian Lackey)

We didn't stop driving down I-35 for hours except for once, around noon, when Eric had to go to the bathroom. He asked me to stand next to him, keep watch for cars and block him from view. I'd never peed on the side of the road before, so he laughed at the look on my face.

Eric had a nice laugh. It squeaked a little, and it didn't sound stilted like mine.

"Technically, you're not supposed to," he explained as we both got out of the car on the side of the highway. There weren't any trees or anything around, just long expanses of flat land that had been there for miles previous, "but when you gotta go, you gotta go, right?"

I nodded, unsure of what else to do and stared out at the road.

There weren't any cars around. I didn't really know why he needed me to keep lookout. I looked up at the sky, clear blue and endless, a lot like Neil McCormick's eyes. The grass hadn't quite grown back yet in the fields, and I wanted to think of spring as a rebirth and the hope of new beginnings, but all I could see was the death and bleakness of winter still rearing its ugly head… So, with nothing that didn't remind me of bitterness to look at, I shouldn't have been surprised when I realized I was looking at Eric.

Eric… who had his pants unzipped and his dick out…

I tried not to look, but I couldn't really help it. Once I saw it, I wasn't exactly able to un-see it. He didn't notice me staring over my shoulder at him at least, so that was a relief, but it was a little unnerving how I couldn't help but peek. I hadn't really seen any other boys like that before… except for Neil and for… _him_… and I was sure Neil probably didn't look the same down there as he did when I saw him. I knew I didn't…

It was weird, standing there unable to not look, unable to not compare. Eric was similar in size, but I found his a lot… and that was also weird… but a lot nicer to look at… Given, I had my own problems with my genitals, considering that during one of those choking, sobbing bad nights I'd actually considered mutilating them. I didn't feel threatened by Eric's, though.

He glanced, and I turned away. He wasn't like Neil at all, and that was why I didn't feel threatened. Where Neil would have smirked and asked me something along the lines of, "you like what you see?" (I knew he would, even though I didn't know him that well), Eric graciously pretended not to notice, even though he blushed sheepishly on the tips of his ears.

He zipped up and wiped his hands on his pants. "Let's go," he said, and his voice cracked just a little. I could tell he was nervous… Maybe he thought I was disgusted by him just for being a guy. Maybe I should have been… but I wasn't.

We got back into the car, and he cranked up the music, and I went back to my notebook. By that point, I had about three pages of scratched out material. The night I'd decided to go to New York, I'd been so sure about what I wanted him to know… Now, though… I wasn't so sure. I was less sure than ever. Neil was a hell of a complicated specimen, one that I'd wanted to make hurt as badly as I hurt, but the more and more I thought about it, the more I guess I chickened out. On some of my less nightmare-filled nights, I'd started to get the image of him in the front seat of that car on that night, staring me down with that expression like the ability to feel pain was so much worse than the actual pain itself, and it made me feel guilty. He didn't deserve my guilt, I kept telling myself, but I felt guilty all the same.

It wasn't like what had happened to me hadn't happened to him… It had happened to him an uncountable amount of times, like the amount of times mattered… and he had liked it anyway, or at least that was what he had said… As time had drawn on though, I began to wonder if that was the truth. Eric had told me that Neil was a king among liars, so why wouldn't he lie to me? Still…

Maybe that was why I couldn't come up with anything. I was too busy fighting with myself.

However, coming up with something to say to Neil, whether to crush him or to finally get him to open up to me, was not my only mission on this trip. I was determined to find some way to glue myself back together, imperfect or not, and finally start to recover from this. It seemed like an impossibility, but God damn it all, I had to _try_. If I didn't at least attempt to get better, I would surely put one of my mom's bullets in my head or drown myself in the bathtub or perhaps bleed to death after cutting off my privates.

I thought it was particularly morbid that I'd thought quite extensively of all three things, fantasizing of killing myself because I felt much worse fantasizing of anything remotely sexual.

I had to get better from this.

* * *

(Neil McCormick)

I had to get better from this.

I was so high at this point that I was sure my heart was bursting through my ribcage, and I was sure that someone was fucking following me, and I was sure that there just might have been fucking bugs underneath my skin, and I was sure that I had no idea of what I was sure of anymore. The euphoria had not lasted nearly long enough. I wanted to feel invincible and in control again, but it was quickly becoming apparent to me that I wasn't either of those things.

What was happening to me? I kept questioning. What had that guy in Brighton Beach done to me? Well… it wasn't like there wasn't a word for what had been done to me, but… No, no, that's not true. That was a word for girls. That didn't happen to guys like me, to hustlers. I was a prostitute. I liked sex (so why wasn't I hustling anymore?). I liked the way I felt when I was having sex (then why did I panic last time?). I liked everything about sex (then why was it making me sick now?). I wasn't raped. I couldn't be raped because I was a hustler, and I couldn't be raped because I was a boy.

No, that's not true.

Brian had been raped.

Shit, I was sick again. I was sick whenever I thought of him. Why? Fuck, _why_? Everything was in sheer and utter pieces, and all I could do was clutch at them, letting them cut sharply into my hands, and wish that my blood could put them back in the right spot.

God damn it, who was following me? I looked over my shoulder, searching the crowds, but I didn't see anyone. I scratched at my arm and found that I was drawing blood there. How many times had I scratched? Wait, what time was it?

I chewed on my bottom lip, sucking on the blood that had formed where it had cracked open. I felt like I was bleeding everywhere, especially on the inside, and it had just started seeping out of my arm and my lip and my nose.

What was happening to me?

I stopped in front of a reflective building, realizing that I didn't know where I was, and I caught sight of myself in the glass… at least, it must have been me, though I didn't really recognize me. I was so skinny, scrawnier than I had ever been, and my clothes were just barely hanging on me. I was gray-skinned, except where there were red spots from scratches that had been rubbed raw from my fingernails. My fingernails were a combination of brown and red underneath them. My hair had gotten really long and scraggly, and I remembered I hadn't had a haircut in an extremely long time. In fact, I couldn't really remember when I'd washed my hair, and a quick touch revealed how greasy it was. My teeth were more yellowed than I remembered them being, and my pupils were big and distant looking, and I just looked so fucking… lost.

I'd lost myself. Maybe I'd left it back in Hutchinson… back in Coach's house, curled up underneath the couch, waiting for his ghost to descend and tell me that what we had was real… or maybe I'd left it in that bathtub in Brighton Beach, swirling down the drain like the water and blood.

Maybe I needed to go home. I hadn't been to the apartment in a while, though I'd lost track of time, so maybe it hadn't been. Maybe I needed to smoke some weed and come down off of this high and get some sleep because Jesus Christ, look at those dark circles under my eyes, and maybe take a shower, but… where was I?

And who the hell was following me?

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans, feeling them slip down my hips some when I did so and trudged on, hoping to find the subway and from there a way away from where I was… Physically and emotionally.

Of course, by the time I'd gotten back home, I'd gotten over that moment of weakness and shut down my emotions, the way I liked myself to be. My high was slowly subsiding, my heart rate slowing and my paranoia dying down, and I wasn't thinking about Brian or Coach or Brighton Beach anymore (if I could help it).

"Hey," I greeted Wendy when I came in, trying to look smiley and chipper and not sick or on drugs or troubled.

"Your job called," she said, and I realized she was sitting on the couch with her arms crossed. She was prepared to lecture or yell or both.

Oh, yeah, I thought idly, I was supposed to go to work today. I'd managed to make it in for the last few shifts, but I'd forgotten again today. Oops.

"Yeah?" I said, playing nonchalant while I lit up a cigarette.

"Yeah," she said, glaring, pursing her lips. "You are aware that you missed again today, right?"

"Um… my mistake," I said. I didn't really care.

"Well, your boss so kindly explained to me that if you couldn't be there when he needed you, then he didn't need you."

I smirked a little. "What does that mean?"

"You've been fired, you fucker."

She was pissed. It was hard for me to think of a time when she wasn't pissed at me now.

"Okay," I said, shrugging.

She exhaled through her nose in the way that told me things were about to get much worse. Maybe I shouldn't have come home, I thought.

"Are you even listening to yourself? You just got _fired_, Neil. You're jobless. Oh, and may I remind you that you were supposed to pay the water bill last week? The water's been turned off."

I put the cigarette in my mouth and tried to feel guiltier, but I was coming down, and I was tired and agitated and just feeling all around shitty. "Okay," I said again.

"Okay. Okay? That's really all you're going to say?"

I blinked. "I'm sorry." I wasn't… at least, I didn't think I was.

Her jaw was set, and she thinned her lips and blinked up at the ceiling, and I realized that she was trying not to cry. _There_ was the guilt I'd been trying to muster.

"Neil. I can't keep doing this. I can't _afford_ to keep doing this. I've been sitting back and letting you do whatever the fuck you want, hoping that you'd realize what a fucking idiot you've been and get with the program, but I can't wait around forever for you to figure it out."

I didn't like this. She was pissed off, but she wasn't yelling. That was a bad sign.

She stood up, pressing a palm to her forehead. "This is serious, Neil. I let you live with me, but I can't afford to keep this place up on my own. I'm tired of you taking my money and running off to dick around in the city all the time. I can't take it anymore. If you want to keep living here, then you're gonna have to start straightening the hell up!"

There was the yelling… but it was strained and hoarse, not like usual.

"Fuck… I care about you, Neil, I really do, but if you don't get off your ass and start putting a little give in your take, then you can't stay here anymore! I don't know what's come over you, but if you aren't going to get any help, and you're not going to let me help you, then there's nothing that can fucking be done. I can only let you use me for so long, Neil, and I hate to say it, but I think I'm done. I'm pretty sure that I'm just fucking _done_."

I opened my mouth but couldn't think of anything to say. My hands were shaking.

She sighed. "Look, I'm gonna give you a little time to think this over. I'm going over to Jay's to take a shower."

"What?" I asked, and my voice had jumped an octave unexpectedly.

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm going over to Jay's to take a shower," she repeated.

"I'll go with you," I said.

"Um… why?"

I opened my mouth again and realized that, once again, I didn't have an explanation. "Uh… well… I need a shower too…" It wasn't really a lie.

"Then I guess you should have paid the water bill," she spat back. There was a falter in her gaze though, looking me up and down and at how dirty I was, and then she looked over at my room for some reason.

"You shouldn't go by yourself," I said. Fuck, I just couldn't shut up, could I?

"Why? I've been there something like three times now. It's only four blocks away."

"Yeah, but I mean, how well do you even know this Jay guy, right? He might…"

He might bend you over the tub and slam his dick into you until you're knocked unconscious. He might beat you over the head with a shampoo bottle and call you a slut and make you bleed…

"He might what?" she asked, but she seemed to notice a shift in my demeanor, and frankly, it wasn't that hard to.

I grabbed her harshly by the shoulders, and my voice cracked pathetically, and all I could say was, "please, don't go by yourself!"

She took me with her.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

(Wendy Peterson)

Something was wrong with Neil McCormick… something more wrong than I ever could have imagined. It was becoming abundantly clear that he wasn't just suffering from a drug addiction. Something else was eating away at him, devouring him from the inside out, and whatever drug he was using all the time was being used to dull away the pain of being chewed on and swallowed. I almost felt guilty for putting him on the spot like that only to watch him start crumbling, but that was Neil McCormick… sucking me in with his black-hole heart.

What was wrong I couldn't know, but I couldn't help but get the sickening feeling that it had something to do with that bloody shirt crammed into the back corner of his dresser. At first I hoped that it wasn't someone else's blood, for fear he got too pissed off at someone and killed them, but then my fear was magnified over the idea that it might have been _his_. He had never mentioned it (of course not, it _was_ Neil after alll), but I expected I would have seen something…

…but I had seen something. I'd been seeing a lot of things… the bruises and scratches, the shutting down, the drug use, the self-destruction… Clearly, something had gone terribly, terribly wrong either in Hutchinson or before, and I had stupidly not noticed… so I couldn't help but feel guilty, threatening to kick out my best friend who was currently in the middle of falling apart.

Still, there was a point when a person could only take so much. I was physically unable to keep working until I dropped just to be able to make rent and utilities, especially for even that to not be enough. I couldn't afford to let him keep leeching off of me like a parasite. I also couldn't allow myself to encourage his self-destruction anymore because, after all, I loved him. It was hard to know why I would at this point, but I did.

When we reached Jay's apartment, it seemed like Neil could barely stand up, legs wobbly underneath him. His hands were in his pockets, and I couldn't help but wonder if his hands were still shaking.

I wondered what he was thinking about.

Jay swung open the door with a smile. Neil gave him a quick onceover, and I could tell that he didn't like him because he never liked any of the boys I dated in the past. Jay wasn't particularly good looking, but I thought that he was so cool with his bleached white hair shaved short at the sides and his tongue piercing.

"Hey, Wendy," he greeted, leaning out and placing a kiss on my forehead. Neil made a low sound in his throat, threatening his disapproval at the man. He gave Neil a look of confusion, and if Neil realized how he himself looked, he wouldn't have been judging Jay so harshly. "Who's this?"

"This is Neil, my roommate. He insisted on coming along this time."

"Oh, well, hey," Jay said, extending his hand to shake.

Neil stared at his hand all decked out in rings and nail polish for a long second before taking it. His hands _were_ still shaking a little.

"Nice to meet you, Neil. I've heard a lot about you," Jay said.

Neil grunted in response.

"So, what brings you two here?"

"Could we maybe use your shower? Dumbass here didn't pay the water bill, and I have to work tomorrow morning, so I'd like to be clean."

He opened the door and gestured to let both of us in. Neil was lighting up a cigarette, not caring whether or not Jay wanted people smoking in his apartment. I knew he wouldn't mind, but it was still rude.

"Shower's in the back," he said, pointing vaguely and plopping down on the couch with his roommate, a guy named Julian who looked a bit like he wanted to be Sid Vicious.

Julian stared at us. No, he stared at Neil. "Hey," Julian said. "Aren't you-"

"No," Neil replied, deciding to sit on the floor rather than on the couch with the other two boys.

I shrugged and left them to go shower. I took my sweet time, enjoying the smells of Jay's shampoo and soap. I combed my hair with his comb, hoping to leave a couple of strands there to remind him of me, and exited to find Jay and Julian in the same place and Neil…

Neil was curled up against the wall, looking half-dead, like he was fighting off sleep.

"Your turn," I said to him, tossing a towel in his face. I had to help him to his feet. This was just _sad_. "Need me to stand in there and make sure you don't bust your head open?" I teased him, hoping to get back a little bit of that Neil McCormick that I loved so much.

He took me by the wrist and locked me inside the bathroom with him.

"I was joking," I said flatly. "You're lucky Jay knows you're queer, or he'd probably be really pissed off right now."

"You offered," he said, pulling his shirt over his head by the collar.

_Fuck_, was he skinny. He was skinnier than I realized. I folded my arms across my chest and swallowed down the remorse I was feeling. All I could think was that he needed help and I was basically telling him to get the hell out. I felt like the worst person in the world.

He stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain shut, and the look on his face was unreadable but very… Well, I guess it would suffice to say that I didn't like it.

He didn't talk to me, he didn't sing (as if he ever did), he didn't say anything. He showered silently and as quickly as physically possible for his tired, tired limbs.

The water shut off, and he grabbed a towel and started drying himself from behind the curtain, and I decided to say something. "We can do this at home as soon as you pay the water bill."

"I get it, okay? Jesus," he grumbled, but his voice was strained, almost like he had been crying. "I just need some sleep. I'll look for a new job, and I'll pay your fucking water bill. Fuck."

"Neil? Are you-"

"No."

"You didn't even know what I was gonna say."

A long second... "The answer is still no."

He started sliding back into his clothes, and I realized that they hadn't been washed in a while. I hadn't gotten to them because he'd been wearing them so long.

…and I thought of that bloody shirt again.

"Neil."

He sat down on the toilet, rubbing his face with his hands. "What?"

"What's going on with you? Won't you please tell me now?"

"I'm fine."

I sighed and slid a hand into his wet hair. "I wish I could read your mind, since you sure as Hell won't tell me anything. You know how I'm going to worry about you no matter what you say."

…and he fell against me, arm snaking around my waist, and said, "I'm sorry…"

He had definitely been crying in the shower.

* * *

(Brian Lackey)

We stopped for the night in Columbia, Missouri at a Days Inn Hotel. After we checked in, we went to a Wendy's that wasn't far from our hotel and ate.

"If fast food is wrong, I don't want to be right," Eric said, sliding a French fry into his mouth. I smiled at him. "So, you've been pretty quiet the whole way. You're okay, right?"

"Stop worrying," I told him, dipping one of my fries into my frosty.

"You know I won't," he said.

I did know that, but really Eric shouldn't have been worrying. He was the only person in my life who could put me at ease and make me smile for real.

I looked over at the woman at the counter because she had been glaring at us whenever she had the time. "What's her problem?" I asked.

Eric snorted. "Apparently, you haven't been paying attention. This happens when I go anywhere with any guy. She thinks you and I are gay together and because that's offensive to her, she's going to try to set our heads on fire with her eyes… as if someone that ignorant would have that ability." He snickered.

"They just assume that?" I asked, blushing a little. It wasn't like I hadn't been called gay before, of course, since I did go to high school after all, but I'd never really taken that insult seriously before. It was mostly just something other kids said to nerds and geeks to make them feel bad. To actually be thought of as such though, just because I was with Eric who happened to be that way was weird to me, and it made me think…

Was I?

After all, my first time had been with a guy and-

Shit.

"Hey. You okay?" Eric asked, noticing the look on my face.

"Let's get the Hell out of here," I mumbled, gathering up the rest of my food and throwing it away. If I looked at the food a moment longer, if I stayed in there with my thoughts a moment longer, I was going to be sick… really sick. My tongue tasted like _him_ again.

Eric followed me out into the parking lot, catching me by the shoulder before I reached the car. "Hey… I'm sorry if I said anything that made you uncomfortable."

I looked at him, the streetlight's beam making him seem pale and otherworldly. "You didn't," I mumbled. "I'm just… I'm just tired. Let's go to the hotel."

* * *

The room had two beds and it was kind of gross looking, but neither of us seemed to mind. I collapsed into the bed on the far side of the room, humming lightly into the pillow, and Eric chuckled at me, flipping on the light.

"You are wiped out, aren't you?" he said, sitting on the side of his bed to unlace his shoes. "So, I hope you don't mind that we're sharing the room. I mean, I thought that maybe you would, but there are two beds at least, so…"

I lifted my head off the pillow, adjusting my glasses that had gone crooked when I face-planted. "Eric. It's fine." I laughed at him because of how ridiculous he was being. He was babbling like a fool and more nervous than I was. He was a lot more innocent then he let on, whether he was a virgin or not.

Eric smiled guiltily and tugged his boots off. "Sorry."

I told him it was fine because it always was, and climbed off the bed to unzip my suitcase and dig out my pajamas. I paused, thinking of how I'd worked on this particular pair of pajama pants to get out a lemon-colored stain.

"Um… Eric?"

"What's up?" He tossed his shoes to the end of the bed and started unzipping his duffel bag.

I blushed and wet my lips, humiliated. "Um… you should know… sometimes I kind of… wet the bed."

I waited for a snicker and an "are you serious?" but it never came, and that was why Eric was my best friend…

"Well, there are some extra sheets in the closet, so if you do, just wake me up, and I'll help you make the bed again."

Actually, _that_ was why.

"I just… I didn't want you to get all grossed out."

He smiled that genuine smile that I wished I had. "As long as you're not getting up and pissing on _me_ then I won't be grossed out, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't do something like that unless I did something to deserve it."

"Thanks, Eric."

"No need for thanks," he said, tugging his shirt over his head. "We all have things we do that we get self-conscious about. I'm not about to hold that against you. It's like I said before, 'when you gotta go, you gotta go,' and it's not like you can control it when you're asleep, right?"

"I guess."

He was trying to make me feel better, and even though it was a lie, it did help me out. He pulled a plain black t-shirt over his head and slipped out of his jeans and padded into the bathroom to wash off his eyeliner. I finished dressing in my pajamas and crawled under the kind of stiff and not very soft comforter of the bed. It was still somewhat early, but I felt sleep tugging at me from every end, and I was perfectly happy to oblige.

Tomorrow would be a new day, I told myself. Tomorrow would be the beginning of my rebirth. Tomorrow I'd figure out what I wanted to say to Neil.

Tonight though was not tomorrow, and I found that because of that, I still dreamed.

I still dreamed of that blue security light and of young, beautiful, ethereal Neil McCormick leaning in to kiss me. I still dreamed of that man's hands touching me and touching me. I still dreamed of the look on his face when he made me do things to him that I never wanted to do to anyone, that I couldn't understand why anyone would _want_ to have that done to them. I still dreamed of his mouth on me and my mouth on him and of Neil's mouth and of that living room and the roaring in my ears and the blood in my nose and the sickness and the wondering and the not wanting to wonder and then the not wanting to know and the tears and the wishing I was dead and the fantasies of death and of the sounds that weren't me but were coming from me and of Neil McCormick and that pained look on his face and

"Shh, shhh…"

I was writhing around and screaming. I must have been because Eric was there in my bed, holding my head to his chest and shushing my wails. He stroked my hair and 'shh'ed over and over again, and I whimpered and cried against him wondering what time it was and what was real and what was all in my head and when he had been woken up by me.

"I'm sorry," I stammered and choked. "S-sorry, I-"

"Shh… it's okay. Don't worry," he whispered, pressing his cheek in my hair and rocking me side to side.

I let out another sob… and it came to me that every time this had happened to me, every time I'd woken in desperation, screams in the back of my throat and all kinds of terrible ideas poking through my brain, hands clawing at the sheet to grip onto something, _anything_… I'd been alone. No one had been there to catch me when I fell down and shattered again, but here Eric was, clutching to me, holding my haphazard pieces together to the best of his ability, and I didn't even ask him to.

Eric was far too good a friend to be Neil's friend, I thought idly. He had even been the one to remind me to call my mom before we went to eat and wouldn't let me duck out of it. All it had taken was a reminder that he couldn't call his mother anymore. I felt like because of Eric, my relationship with my mom would mend too. Eric was the glue holding me together.

I calmed down and came back to my senses. I stopped making those pathetic little noises that Neil had talked about and just leaned into his shoulder. For a second I half-expected a family to come inside, find us sitting there, and stare until we left, but I remembered that this was not Neil McCormick, and this was not Hutchinson, Kansas, and this was not Coach's house.

"Here, come on, get up," Eric mumbled, and I did, realizing my pants were sticking to me when I did. I gazed at the clock to see a blurry red number since I wasn't wearing my glasses. "How about you go get in the shower, okay? I'll… I'll make this bed up, and you can sleep in the other one, okay? Um…"

"Eric," I whimpered, wiping at my eyes. He placed my glasses on my face as I moved my hands, and his visage came in to me clearly. He had tears pricking at the edges of his eyes because he was just so worried about me that he couldn't help it…

"What is it?" he asked, brushing hair out of my eyes like a mom.

I sniffed, thankful that there was no blood there, and said, "Coach Heider molested me."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

(Eric Preston)

He'd admitted it.

He'd finally come out and told me.

It wasn't that I hadn't known, but for him to say it was… _shocking_. It was terrible because for that to happen to anyone was just awful, but it was wonderful because _damn_ if that wasn't some sort of progress...

Still, it should have been him to go to pieces, not me.

"Wh… Why are you crying?" Brian asked awkwardly, nervously, horrified.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I blubbered. "I'm just… It sucks so bad that that happened, and I'm happy that you trust me enough to tell me that and… I'm so _sorry_!" I didn't care if he didn't like to be touched often. I hugged him. I _squeezed_ him. I didn't care that he had piss down his front. I didn't care because I needed to hug him, and everyone has to be selfish once in a while.

He let me and never once attempted to push me away.

"Fuck, that's such bullshit that something like that would happen to you, and it pisses me off so bad," I sniveled and sobbed. "I hate that motherfucker so bad. I hate him, and I hate that he did that, and I know I'm a babbling idiot but God damn it!"

He cried too, quiet and soft like he didn't want me to know, and we pretty much stood there for a half hour holding each other before both of us realized how dramatic we were being. We finally separated, and he went into the bathroom to take a shower, and I went to work peeling the soiled sheets off of his bed and tossing them in a corner for the maid to pick up later. I remade the bed, listening to the water run, letting it calm me. I thought about maybe taking a shower too if only to let it loosen up my nerves.

It had been a hell of an awakening when Brian started screaming, and I didn't even think twice before going to him. Nobody wailed out like that without the need of some sort of comfort. He needed my help, and I was willing to supply it to him.

_Poor thing_ was all I could think. It wasn't like I didn't know what brought this about. I'd kind of half-expected something like this to happen, but it wasn't anything like I had imagined. I figured it was one of those things that I just couldn't imagine because I hadn't experienced such a thing… such a terrible, terrible thing. When I was sitting there, with him battling with imaginary ghosts in my arms, trying to choke the night terrors into non-existence, I couldn't help but think that it was the saddest thing ever and that maybe, just maybe, Neil spent his nights like this too. Who was there to hold Neil when he was like this?

…but Neil wasn't like Brian. Neil was probably freely jumping in and out of beds of anyone he wanted, not caring about anything or anyone, dancing through life completely and utterly fine. He never registered any trauma in his life… He just tossed it to the wayside and left everyone else feeling it to deal.

…and I could suffice to say that at that moment, with Brian in my arms looking for any comfort he could salvage, that I was no longer in love with Neil McCormick.

The bathroom door opened, and I blinked as light flooded my eyes. Brian stood there, looking half-drowned and embarrassed since he was only in a towel. He adjusted his glasses, trying to see because they'd fogged up and I stared until I was sure he could see me and casually looked away. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea since I'd just gotten him to open up to me.

"I uh… forgot to get some clothes," he mumbled, crouching before his suitcase. As he pulled out a new pair of pajamas, he looked up at me, mouth twitching a little. "Are you okay now?" he asked.

I could have laughed, and I could have cried, but I didn't do either. I just smiled and said, "Yeah… I'm okay. Are you?"

He wandered back into the bathroom, seeming to be thinking of an answer to the question. I sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing my hands between my knees. As an afterthought, I lit up a cigarette because it really took the edge off of everything.

Brian came out in his pajamas, a little drier, though his hair was still dripping. "I'm okay…" he said slowly. "I'm… actually feeling a little better than before… kind of, I don't know… liberated?"

He slumped next to me, and he didn't seem to think he had to avoid touching me anymore because his knee bumped mine.

"I wish there was something I could do," I admitted, staring at him sympathetically. He still looked like he could burst into tears at any second, and if he couldn't hold his composure, I surely couldn't either.

"There's nothing that can be done," Brian sighed, apparently wishing that I could do something too. "That's the past… and while it still fucks with me, it's not like I can pretend it never happened or change it… no matter how much I wish I could… but… this isn't something that I can get better from on my own, so… I think that you've been doing enough just by being here. Thanks."

I nodded, swallowing a lump that was trying to form in my throat. "Well, I guess you can take this bed, and I'll just-"

"It's okay," he interrupted. "Why don't we just share it? It's big enough, right?"

"But-"

Then came the real reason. "I just… really don't want to be alone right now…"

Well, it's not like I could deny him of that when he was already so vulnerable.

I crawled into the bed, and he set his glasses on the nightstand, and we both just tried to go back to sleep and hopefully not dream. Somehow during the night, his back pressed up against mine, and I curled my arms around him and just enjoyed the feeling of his warmness.

In the dark, I placed a feather-light kiss on the back of his neck and whispered, "I love you."

He didn't wet the bed or bleed out of his nose or wake up screaming, and if I had to lay next to him for him to get a good night sleep for the rest of his life, I would without hesitation.

* * *

(Neil McCormick)

I slept nearly nonstop for two days, only awake to piss, to eat, and to recover from the nightmares. I didn't like staying awake because when I was awake, I was reminded that I didn't have any coke. That was worse than everything else.

By the end of the second day, I was digging desperately through all of my things for some cash. Just ten dollars could get me a dime bag. That could last me a little while… but then what would I do? I needed to go to work- oh yeah.

I needed to get a job.

I found a ten dollar bill in the pocket of an old pair of jeans and could have cried with relief. It was a shame my bank account had been cleaned out already, or I wouldn't have had to turn my room upside down for it. I dressed as quickly as I could and left before Wendy even knew I was awake.

The dime bag was gone too quickly… but I still dug through my closet and found my nicest outfit, one I usually wore to the hustler bar, combed my hair and hoped the scratches on my face and neck weren't too obvious.

The job hunt didn't go well. Apparently, people weren't keen on hiring people who looked like me… like a cocaine addict… I rolled my eyes at them because what the fuck did they know? Most of the suits up at Wall Street were snorting the shit too. It really was no surprise that I ended up at the hustler bar.

It also was no surprise that I got a horrible sick feeling in my gut the moment I stepped inside.

Don't panic, I told myself, taking a few deep breaths. You like doing this.

I leaned up against the wall, smoking, swallowing the bile in my throat. I recognized a couple of the other hustlers, and I spotted a couple of johns I'd fucked. The difference between New York and Hutchinson was that there were always, _always_ new people to fuck. I could no longer figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Considering how much weight I'd lost and how pale and beat up I looked, I half-expected for the john search to go just about as well as the job search… but then I got picked. There was a weird knot in my stomach when I was approached.

He flirted and I forced a smile and a laugh and tried not to grimace when his hand pressed against the small of my back to lead me out.

My heart rate quickened by the time we were in the parking lot, feeling his hot, hot, hot fingers against my spine, and I thought that maybe he would snap me in half.

"What's with that look?" the man asked.

I looked at him. He was taller than me, bigger and more muscular. He was twenty years older than me at least. He was blonde, and he had a moustache. There was a tattoo on his neck of an upside-down cross, and he had hair on his chest that was peeking out from under his dark blue-green shirt. His teeth were crooked and yellow.

He was disgusting.

So was I.

And suddenly…

_You deserve this_.

The sentence came into my head and stuck there, squirming in my ear but never getting out, like a bug had burrowed there.

"You _are_ clean, aren't you?" the guy asked, and I raised my eyebrows at him… and then I started laughing. I started laughing, and it wasn't anything like how I laughed when I'd heard anything funny. It was this weird, stilted sound, maniacal and high-pitched and squeaky and breathless. "Jesus, kid, what the fuck are you on?" he shouted.

I shoved him up against the wall with all the force I could muster, leaning against his chest and breathing in his musky scent between gasps for air. "I don't know. I don't know…" I was practically singing the phrase.

You deserve this you deserve this you deserve this you deserve this

SLUT.

**SLUT.**

_**SLUT**_.

I sucked him off, but when I bit down on him in a panic, he slammed my head against the brick wall and cursed at me, and then I started to cry pathetically and beg him not to kill me (_sound familiar?_ I thought), and he gave me the same look my last john had given me, paid me, and most likely decided to never frequent that bar again.

Fifty bucks.

I sniffed and pressed my palm to the aching spot on the side of my head. When I pulled my hand back, I saw a bright smudge of red.

_You deserve this._

* * *

I remembered that I needed to pay the water bill about ten minutes after I'd bought my coke and snorted it. Oops.

I needed to get more money, but I'd been vomiting since that last john over an hour ago, and I was pretty sure it wasn't just the concussion (which I'd just let bleed until it clotted because I deserved it, apparently). Blood was dried to my face like from that night in Brighton Beach, and I was staring at the street with wild eyes, searching for _him_ because he was always in every car I couldn't see into because I couldn't remember what he drove… Desperation was washing over me, and I realized I had no joy in this particular high. Wendy had gone and ruined that for me with her damn threats and damn water bill.

What was that? Nothing? Shit, I was hearing things.

I stared into a convenience store's window, seeing the cashier flip another page in her magazine and pop her gum. How agitating.

I walked away… but I came back. I didn't know what had come over me, but I yanked my wool cap down over my head and shoved my hair up inside of it. I zipped up my jacket and popped up my collar and shoved my hand into my pocket and dug out the pocket knife I'd been carrying with me since that night in Brighton Beach.

This is a mistake, some voice said.

I never really was good at listening, but I thought for a second that maybe I should. I'd shoplifted before, but this…

I grabbed a pair of sunglasses from the turnaround display as soon as I came in, slipping them on while keeping my head down away from the security camera. The girl at the register never even looked up.

You shouldn't do this, said that voice.

I stepped up to the register and flipped the blade out of my knife. The girl started to look up, but she only got as far as the knife before her gaze screeched to a halt and turned as white as her t-shirt.

"Open the register," I told her quietly, trying to make my voice sound different than usual. When she just stared, I yelled more gruffly, "Open it."

She did, and I made a gesture for her to move aside with my knife. I grabbed handfuls of the bills and shoved them into my pockets and kept doing it until the register was empty save for some change. I looked back at the girl who was pressed up against the wall, crying and so scared, and I felt…

Whatever. The deed had been done.

I left, and the little tinkling of the bell rang in my ears all the way back to the apartment.

The money I stole only added up to about two hundred dollars, which was enough to pay the water bill, but I still didn't have any satisfaction, piling the money into a jar and throwing all of the clothes I wore into my bottom drawer and slamming it shut. I stood there in my room, naked, holding the jar of money in my arms and the little baggy of cocaine between my fingers and looked around the room.

…and I thought that the place should fucking burn.

I heard Wendy's key in the lock of the front door, heard her return from work, and I looked down at that jar that I'd gotten for her, that I'd gotten so she wouldn't be mad at me anymore, and I just… burst into tears. Loud tears.

Wendy knocked because I locked the door. "Neil? Neil, what's going on? Are you okay?" her voice called through the door, slightly muffled by the wood.

"What the fuck am I doing?" I screamed at the wall, and the voice really didn't sound like me.

"Neil?" she was shouting now too, pounding on the door.

I threw the jar against the wall and it shattered, and for some reason I related to that glass… the sound managed to make me feel better, to hear something _else_ (else?) be broken. I got my head together and a rubbed little bit of the coke on my gums before stashing it in the top drawer and opened the bedroom door.

Wendy was wide-eyed and full of horror, a lot like that girl from the store. "Jesus Christ!" she shouted.

I realized then how very naked I was and how powdered my nose was and how much blood was stuck to my face.

"What the fuck have you been doing?" she practically begged. "Oh, my… I just…" Apparently she couldn't find the words. I couldn't really think of anything either.

I sniffed. My nose was bleeding.

Oh, that pounding and rushing in my ears was from my heart.

Then, everything went black.

* * *

(Brian Lackey)

The sun was peeking in through the partially drawn curtains, and the little streak of light hit me square across the eyes. I grumbled and slowly managed to blink my eyes open. I pulled a fist out from the warmth of the covers and wiped crust out of my eyes and reached for my glasses.

The night before came pouring into my skull like someone had turned on a faucet, and I barely managed to make a single whimper before an arm around my waist that I hadn't noticed tightened around me.

Eric.

He pressed his face against my back, shushing me. "It's okay. You're okay," he mumbled into my back, and I sank back down onto the mattress. If anyone else had said it, I might have flown into a severe fit, but when Eric said it, I believed it… mostly. I didn't think I was truthfully and completely okay. I didn't know if I would ever be… but I felt so much better than I did.

I turned myself around so that we were facing each other because a little panicked part of me wanted to make sure that it was him and not someone else, and I pressed my forehead to his and went to shut my eyes and go back to sleep for a while. I noticed the corners of his lips twitch up just as my eyelids dipped.

We didn't get up and get out of town until around eleven, and it seemed that as soon as we were in the car and back on the highway, it came spilling out of me. I started telling Eric everything, _everything_. I couldn't stop. I told him all about that unforgettable night during that summer, the slightly hazy one from Halloween two years afterward, the way I had passed out when talking to Avalyn, the way I had panicked when she'd put her hands on me… It turned into bitter resentment towards my father and sobbing fits about my mother and sister, and I had to stop when I got to the subject of Neil because my nose started to bleed.

Eric squeezed my hand while I talked until I was sure my fingers were going to fall off, and I think he was grateful that he didn't wear any makeup that morning because he was more of a mess of tears than I was. I appreciated that.

He pulled over when it got to be too much for him and just sat there weeping for a while, high pitched yelps rather than sobs. His sniffed and sniveled and wiped at his eyes but never once let go of my hand.

"Why are you crying so much?" I asked him, laughing a little at him through the tears because to me it was a little silly. Once again, I felt like I should be the one that was a mess, not him. Sure, I _was_ a mess, but…

"_Why_? You did hear what you just said, right?" He asked, sniffling. "Fuck… I just get so emotional when I think that someone would do something like that to someone as great as you. I mean… God… I want to _kill_ that motherfucker. You deserved so much better than… You deserve so much better than that. I fucking _hate_ that. I _hate it_!" He slammed his hands against the steering wheel. "Those moments in your life should have been beautiful! Your first kiss, your first time…. They should have been good memories… Damn it… FUCK!" He pressed his forehead to the steering wheel then and let out a shuddered breath.

I sat in silence, wondering if he was finished. I was more than a little… _moved_ by it, honestly. I knew that Eric was a great friend and a great guy and all that, but for him to care that much… to be that affected by it just because it happened to me… Fuck, he was right. My first kiss should have been special. Fuck. _Fuck_.

It was something I needed to get back from Neil McCormick.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

(Wendy Peterson)

I didn't know what to do. I not only couldn't afford to take Neil to the hospital, but I also couldn't afford to get him out of jail if I were to take him to the hospital. I couldn't remember if doctor-patient confidentiality applied to illegal substances, and I didn't want to risk it. I didn't think Neil could make it in prison. He was barely making it in New York…

…as obviously shown in the way that he was currently unconscious and covered in blood.

I panicked, nearly passed out as well, but managed to call Jay instead and beg him to come help me. It took him less than five minutes to get there, his roommate Julian on his heels with wet hair and no make-up.

"What happened?" Jay asked, helping me put Neil into a pair of boxer shorts and onto the couch.

"I don't know… I mean, I think he's on some kind of drug, but I don't know where the blood came from or why he's naked or any of that. I came home and he was screaming, and I heard glass breaking, and then it was quiet, and he opened the door and just… hit the floor. I don't think it was the drugs though, I think it's from the blood… Is he still bleeding?"

Jay was parting his hair away from his head to find a rather grisly looking wound. It seemed to have stopped bleeding, and I thought maybe he'd just lost too much when his nose started to bleed, and all I could think was that I hoped that was all.

"His heart's going a mile a minute," Julian mumbled, pressing his ear to his chest.

Neil squirmed then, eyes squeezing tightly shut, and his mouth screwed up, and all of a sudden he was shouting, "Get the fuck off of me!"

Julian stepped back, raising his hands in defense. Jay stumbled back as well. Neil propped himself up on his elbows looking like some sort of caged animal, dilated pupils searching all of our faces for the one he must have been seeing in his head.

"What… what's going on here?" he asked, seeming to calm his nerves. He sniffed.

"That's what I'd like to fucking know!" I shouted.

Jay grabbed my shoulders and squeezed them, reminding me that now was probably not the best time to start yelling at him.

Neil cleared his throat, seeming to come to his senses about what had happened. "I…" He stopped because really there was nothing he could say to make the moment less unbearably awkward. He sniffed. I wanted to punch him in the face.

Julian asked where the bathroom was and vanished into it after I weakly pointed, never taking my eyes off of Neil. He returned with a wet wash cloth and handed it to Neil. "You should at least wipe the blood off your face, man. Oh, and the coke too."

Neil's eyes went wide like saucers, and for a second I feared for Julian's safety, but I knew that Neil was still a bit too dizzy to be any sort of threat.

Julian shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped back into the group. Neil sat there like he was on display, holding the rag to his nose uncomfortably, almost like he no longer knew how to use it. I couldn't watch him like that for more than a second before I knelt down next to him and started cleaning him off myself.

Thank God, I thought when I realized that the head wound wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. He probably still should have gone to the hospital but… "How did this happen?" I asked him, gently, even though I still wanted to yell. He looked like he was going to fall to pieces if I wasn't careful. At least _one_ of us had to be careful.

"I don't really remember," he lied. Normally he was a pretty convincing liar. He wasn't really selling it this time, and I knew it wasn't because he was out of practice. I thought that maybe it was Jay and Julian's presence lingering around behind me. I thought about maybe sending them out, but I needed them for me, and I was tired of being selfless for Neil.

"Yes, you do."

He exhaled through his nose and gave me a desperate plea sort of look, but I wasn't giving in to him now.

He gave up surprisingly quickly, considering who he was. He looked down into his lap, rolling one hand over the other again and again. "I… I was…" he stammered a little which also wasn't typical of him, and if I didn't know him better, I could have sworn I heard guilt. "I was sucking this guy off, and I bit him, and he slammed my head against the wall." He was so quiet that it took a minute for me to register what he'd said.

"Oh, God damn it, Neil!" Crap. I was yelling again. "You're hustling again? Fuck!"

"I'm sorry!" he yelped, and I almost believed him except for the fact that Neil was never sorry for anything. "I didn't want to, but you said you'd kick me out if I didn't pay the water bill and stuff, and I tried to get a real job but no one would hire me, so I went back to the hustler bar but then I fucking panicked and I only got fifty bucks from that guy and so I… I'm sorry!" Desperation was bubbling up with every word until he was a quivering mess, grasping to the sleeve of my shirt for dear life.

…and then his eyes were wildly darting towards the door to his room where Julian was peeking inside. "Get the fuck out!" he shouted.

Julian stepped away from the door, lifting his hands in the same fashion he'd already done. "There has got to be at least a hundred dollars on the floor in there. Where'd all that come from?"

"None of your goddamned business! Who the fuck are you? Get the hell out!"

"Neil, calm down," I told him, pressing the rag to the wound on his head, and he whimpered as a shot of pain surely hit his skull.

"Why are they here?" he asked, and his voice was quickly losing his bite. I felt that he was fearful that control was slipping from him, and he never did like control to be taken away from him. The only thing he couldn't control was himself.

"I called them to come over and help me when you dropped to the floor like a puppet. I couldn't exactly move you on my own, you know, no matter how lightweight you've gotten."

"You couldn't have called someone else?" he asked bitterly.

"Like who?" I complained right back, dabbing the wound a little more harshly than I should have. "Eric? Your mom? Your little league coach?"

That was extremely harsh, even with as mad as I was.

The look on his face was something I'd never seen… it was something like he was trying to feel pain, but he didn't know how to. "Fuck you," he spat, more bitter than I'd ever heard. He grabbed the rag from me and pressed it to his temple on his own. "I can take care of myself. Bitch."

"Apparently you can't," I said. "Where did the money come from, Neil?"

"It's mine."

"That's not what I asked."

"You think you can just-"

"Where did you get it?"

"What does it matter?"

"Why are you avoiding the subject?"

Voices were rising to unbelievably loud levels, and I worried that our neighbors might start beating on the walls if it kept up, but I was getting strung out and fed up, and I couldn't take it anymore.

"I took it, okay? I took it to pay your goddamned fucking water bill, you insufferable _bitch_!"

I wondered how much he meant the insult when he burst into tears and buried his face into my neck.

"You fucking bitch. How could you… you fucking…"

Jay and Julian shifted awkwardly from foot to foot but didn't dare move more than that. Neil cried heartbreakingly in my arms until he crashed from his high and fell asleep.

* * *

(Eric Preston)

Brian's slow ascent to recovery was worth celebrating, and so when we made it to Indianapolis, we splurged a little and bought sushi. I used my fake I.D. and a little flirting to get a bottle of wine, and we sat on the hood of the car in the hotel's nearly empty parking lot and drank straight from the mouth of the bottle.

"To new beginnings," I said, holding the bottle in the air. He clacked his Styrofoam sushi container against the bottle and swallowed a piece while I took a large swig of the bottle. I passed it to him, and he drank from it gratefully as well.

He hiccupped a little and handed the bottle back, leaning back on the windshield and staring up at the stars. The night was completely clear, and the moon cast a silvery hue to everything. If I hadn't thought him so untouchable, I would have found it romantic… well, about as romantic as I could afford.

"Hey, Eric…"

"What?"

He paused, thinking hard, and then shrugged, snickering a little. "Nothin'."

He was drunk. He was so cute when he was drunk.

I swigged out of the bottle again, tasting a bit of Brian's sushi there. I figured it would be as close as I would come to his lips, so I savored it even if it was a little fishy.

"You know, I don't think I ever had sushi before now," Brian slurred, popping the last bite of his into his mouth. He couldn't use chopsticks, so he ate it with his hands. I had a feeling that even if he could have used them, he wouldn't have been able to in the state he was in. "It's really good."

"Yeah, we eat hip, chic things like sushi all the time in California," I joked, but he just nodded, apparently thinking I was completely serious.

He was so cute.

We talked a lot about nothing for a few minutes, next to each other on the windshield, staring up into the sky. He wasn't making any sense at all, stumbling over his words and laughing at any moderately inappropriate words. He was so young, I thought, even with the very grown-up things that had happened to him. It was worth admiration. I liked that I felt so young when I was with him, even when we were doing grown-up things.

He drank from the bottle, and I watched his Adam's apple bob up and down. "You know," he spoke, barely understandable under the guise of alcohol, "with the moon like this, and the parking lot all empty, it looks a lot like a stage, doesn't it?"

He was trashed. It didn't look anything like a stage.

"Sure, it does," I offered, nudging his knee with mine but only slightly so that he wouldn't go rolling off the side of the car. "…though… I think it looks a little more like a dance floor."

"That's what I meant."

Like those two things were the same.

I hopped off the car and turned on the ignition so music was blaring from inside, extended my hand to him and bowed dramatically. "Care to dance, good sir?"

He laughed at me and nearly fell off of the car as he reached for my hand. He had to slump against me for a second, and what a beautiful second that was for me.

"I don't really know how to dance," he said, and I figured he wouldn't have been able to dance well regardless of years of practice or not.

"It's okay. It's easy," I said, placing his hand on my waist while I put my hand on his shoulder. "Just like this."

"Yeah…" Brian mumbled, rocking side to side with me, though I wasn't entirely sure if it was from trying to dance or just losing his battle with gravity. "I didn't go to my school prom or nothin'. I didn't have a date."

"Neither did I," I said, chuckling a little. "Prom's for yuppies. Here we can dance to whatever music we want to." I started moving my feet, and he clumsily followed but eventually figured it out. "All those girls who didn't go with you were missing out anyway. Football players and all those other sports guys tend to be real assholes."

He laughed, pressing his forehead against my shoulder.

"Yeah, and most of the time they turn out to be repressed homosexuals," I added, and then we were both laughing into each other's shoulders. I hadn't even realized how close we had started pressing ourselves together. Surely it was just him leaning against me to keep his footing. After all, I didn't need to lean against him to keep from falling. I'd already done that.

God, I got so cheesy when I was drunk.

I swung him out by the arm before spinning him back to me, and he looked just a little panicked from the sudden movement but smiled and laughed again.

"Now you're getting it," I said and started sweeping him around the parking lot. I'd never been an amazing dancer or anything, but my mom had taught me a lot of basics since she'd taken several years of it when she was young. She and I had danced together in the kitchen when I was a little boy, and I had never danced with anyone else.

Of course, Brian wasn't just anyone.

"You're actually pretty good at this, considering you're so drunk," I laughed, and I thought that I must have been pretty drunk too because I was feeling all warm all over. "Maybe we can go dancing at a cool club or something when we get to New York."

We slowed to a stop almost suddenly, and he looked at me kind of distantly like he was trying to remember why we were even going to New York.

How dare anyone not see how beautiful he was?

"I bet you miss Neil pretty bad, huh…" he said then, and there was insecurity in his voice that hadn't been there before. I tried to pass it off as nothing but alcohol, but I knew I couldn't. I was just a bit too hopeful for that.

"Honestly?" I said, raising my eyebrows. Hesitation… He was looking intently at me. I smiled. "Not at all."

"Really? But… I thought that you…" He was trying not to smile. It wasn't working.

"I did, but… I don't. Not anymore."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I don't know." I did… but I couldn't exactly tell him _I'm crazy about you, I love you, I absolutely fucking adore every last bit of your beautiful self, even the horrible, terrible parts because you're so wonderful and great and I don't feel depressed or like wearing black so much or writing crappy, melodramatic poetry or thinking about cutting myself because I'm just so much happier when I'm with you._ After all, that was kind of a mouthful, and I was really drunk.

Brian had gotten distracted by the music and started singing along. He couldn't really remember all the words, but he was basically mumbling unintelligibly anyway.

"I'm a little dizzy," he said when he realized that I was staring.

"Do you want to go inside and go to bed?" I asked. "Maybe it was the spinning or…"

He pressed his forehead against mine, noses touching, and I could smell wine emanating off of him like it was cologne. I breathed it in, smelling how it mixed with the smell of the night air and of the laundry detergent from his clothes and from his shampoo, and it was perfect…

No, scratch that.

When his mouth just very lightly brushed, just a little more than ghosted against mine… now that, _that_ was perfect.

It wasn't even ruined when he vomited all over my shoes.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

(Brian Lackey)

I woke up with a headache, unable to remember anything from the night before. I tasted wine and sushi on my lips along with the familiar taste of vomit, and as much as I thought that I enjoyed the sushi when I ate it, I was sincerely questioning if I would ever eat it again.

I groaned a little as the blood pulsed in my temples and pushed my face up against Eric's t-shirt. He was snoring somewhat loudly above the top of my head. It was probably the wine because he didn't normally snore that loud.

I risked opening my eyes, and thankfully one of us had remembered to shut the curtains. It must have been Eric, but I really couldn't remember.

I crawled out from under the sheets and shivered because the room was so cold by comparison. I was still in my clothes from the night before.

I found some Tylenol in Eric's bag since I'd forgotten to pack any, swallowed two pills, and hopped into the shower to try to get rid of my headache. Thankfully, after standing under the showerhead for twenty minutes, it started to fade. I dried off and dressed and started to shave and realized that I was humming… something… I couldn't remember the name of the song, but I was pretty sure it was on one of those tapes I'd bought Eric for Christmas. I didn't remember listening to it in the car, but my memory was still pretty fuzzy, and we'd probably listened to it the day before or so… maybe…

I tugged the map out of my suitcase, sitting on the edge of the bed, listening while Eric snored, half-suffocating himself in the pillow. We were behind schedule. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was a nine to ten hour drive, and we'd have to make it today if we intended to get back on track. The good thing was that after that New York was only a short few hours away.

Actually, was it a good thing? I still wasn't sure what I would say to Neil… I didn't even want to make him hurt anymore. I didn't feel so fucking terrible anymore, and when I was with Eric, I didn't dream… well, I _did_… but I had his presence there to remind me that that was all it was, and it didn't frighten me so badly. I didn't know how it would be when I got back home and inevitably spent my nights alone, but frankly, I didn't want to think about that so I didn't.

Still… there was something keeping me from telling Eric that we should just go back and forget about it… Something, _something_ was compelling me to go to New York. It was a nagging feeling in the back of my head. It felt like I _needed_ to go to New York, more than I'd ever needed anything in my life, almost like my life depended on it… Well, no… not _my_ life really… but… maybe someone else's life.

What did that mean?

I was beginning to feel that same feeling I'd had when I wanted to know what had happened to me… that constant, horrible wondering… and the slight fear of what I would find.

I leaned over and touched Eric's shoulder, shaking lightly. "Hey. Eric…"

He snorted, mumbled, and slowly blinked open the crust-filled eye that wasn't buried in the pillow. "What time's it?" he asked, voice heavy with sleep.

"Almost nine. We've got a long drive."

He mumbled again and lifted himself up, rubbing his eyes with his fist. "Need a shower," he mumbled, and then he gave me a weird little smile, like he knew something I didn't know. I didn't question him on it, figuring he would tell me later.

I went down to the hotel's continental breakfast and grabbed Eric and me some bagels and dry cereal in plastic bowls and went back up to find him digging through his duffel bag for a shirt. He had freckles on his shoulders, I noticed, and then I wondered why I was noticing.

"I see you're ready to go," I teased him.

"Running a little sluggish is all," Eric replied, and I could have sworn the tips of his ears turned pink. He yanked out a t-shirt that had been washed so many times that the band's logo had faded to the point of obscurity and pulled it over his head, sending some of his curls bouncing. "Just let me put on my face, and we can leave."

He went into the bathroom to doll himself up with all the ridiculous amounts of make-up, and maybe it was just me, but I was pretty sure he was humming the same song that I had been.

* * *

(Neil McCormick)

I woke up with a headache, unable to remember anything from the night before. I tasted blood and the familiar taste of cock on my lips, and it made the familiar taste of vomit touch the back of my throat.

I slowly lifted my head, but my vision swam, swirled, and dimmed for a second. I placed a palm against my temple and felt a bandage there. When had I banged my head?

Oh, yeah.

I remembered that part… the rest of it though was still a great big blur.

Wendy came out of the bathroom, tying her hair back, and she saw me sitting there and came rushing at me. Her hand didn't slap or punch like I'd expected but instead brushed against my cheek, thumb rubbing my cheekbone that I was sure was more pronounced as of lately. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Shitty," I said, blinking slowly.

"Is there anything I can get for you?" she asked, pushing my hair out of the way to check the wound on my head.

"Yeah… a gun and a bullet," I replied flatly. It was meant to be a joke, but as it came out of my mouth it felt eerily true.

"Don't joke about things like that."

"You don't have any sense of humor." I dropped my legs to the floor and leaned my elbows onto my knees, rubbing my face with my hands. "Where are my clothes?"

"You don't remember anything about last night," she said, raising her eyebrows.

I paused, trying to remember, but all I heard was this vague echo of bells. "Was I abducted by aliens?" I asked.

I started laughing hysterically, even though there was absolutely nothing funny about it. Nothing was funny about it at all. Nothing… but I kept laughing, laughing until my sides hurt and my stomach ached and I couldn't breathe and I could hardly see because I knew that if I didn't laugh then something much worse would come spilling out of me. What that was I didn't know, but I didn't want to know.

"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Wendy demanded, and her voice was strained and exhausted and I wondered if she had slept that night.

"I don't know. I don't know!" I was practically singing the phrase. "Nothing! Everything!"

"Oh, God, you really have lost it… I should have taken you to the hospital."

"That's where the aliens put the probe," I said, snickering as I pointed at my head wound. "I bet they're watching us right now. Like ghosts."

She made a face full of horror, and it struck a familiar chord with me for some reason I couldn't identify. My humor faded away. "I'm joking," I said because I really wasn't sure what I was doing. "My head is fine." Well, not anymore fucked up than before.

Why did I think that?

"You fucking dickhead," Wendy grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. "I thought I'd lost you."

I stood, testing my footing. I managed to stay up, so that was good.

"Neil… I don't want to lose you, ever."

"Confessing your love?" I teased.

"Neil…"

Her voice sounded different. It sounded sad, weak, shaky… I didn't like it. I didn't want to turn around because I knew what I would see.

"Neil," she sobbed, and I felt my hands clench, "Neil, please… _Please_, stop snorting coke. Please, please, _please_ stop. If you care about me even a little bit, please do this for me."

I sniffed and wiped my nose on my wrist. No blood this time.

"I never said-"

"I'm not fucking stupid, Neil. I know what you've been doing, and I hoped that you would get a clue, but I'm asking you… no, I'm _begging_ you, Neil, please, _please_ stop. You're killing yourself, and I can't keep watching you do that!"

"I…"

What was I supposed to say to that?

"Neil… take a look at yourself in the mirror. Take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and try to convince me that you're okay. You can't honestly say that, can you? Are you really that addicted, that you can't even see that you're a skeleton, and you're scratched up, and you haven't slept or eaten, and that you're getting the shit beat out of you for enough money to buy more so you can do it all over again…? You don't see that?"

I didn't like what she was saying. I didn't like the way she was saying it.

I really didn't like that she was right.

"Neil, I know you don't want to do this. I know you're hurting. You don't remember, but you were a crying mess in my arms last night. You were just sobbing and sobbing until you crashed. You just cried and cried and cried until you fell asleep… Please, don't keep doing this to yourself. Please, please, _please_ don't keep doing this. I love you, Neil, but I don't even know you anymore. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to feel like I've already lost you. Why do you keep doing this? Are you that addicted, Neil? I can take you to a clinic."

I closed my eyes, wanting to shut out what she was saying. She didn't understand. She didn't understand that some part of me was already lost, and I couldn't figure out where I'd put it anymore. Maybe it was back in Hutchinson… maybe it was clogging up that drain in Brighton Beach. I didn't know. I just didn't know.

"I can handle it…" I said, and it was so weak that even I didn't believe it.

"No, you can't, Neil… and that's okay. You shouldn't think you have to do everything by yourself. I want to help you, but you have to let me. There are so many people who…"

"Who what?" I asked, laughing, and it was low in my throat and bitter in sound and taste. "Who care about me? Fuck, Wendy, look around… You're conducting a fucking intervention, and the only one here is _you_."

I could feel her stiffen just from her gaze. I still wouldn't look at her.

"Wendy," I mumbled, staring at the floor, "have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, just for a second, that maybe you'd be better off dead?"

"No…"

"Yeah, well, me neither," I said, snagging a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table. "I don't like to look in the mirror anymore."

She sat there with her knees together, hands clutched tightly in her lap. She couldn't seem to come up with anything to say to that and instead just watched me light my cigarette.

…and I thought I'd give this cocaine-free lifestyle a try for a few days, not because I wanted Wendy to feel better, but because I deserved the misery I had coming my way from being sober.

I dug out where I'd stashed it, only vaguely remembering that I had done so, and glanced over at the wall where there was broken glass and handfuls of cash. "What the fuck is that all about?" I asked.

"I don't know…" she mumbled into her hands.

I extended the little bag to her, waving it in front of her, though it was definitely more tantalizing for me. "Here. Take it. That's all I got. You might want to take that money too."

She looked through the bag at me. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, take it. Take it before I change my mind."

She did without hesitation… and then she dumped it in the toilet and flushed it down.

"Thank you… Neil…" she said.

"Don't thank me yet. You're about to hate me a whole lot more…"

* * *

I wasn't wrong. I was sure she was absolutely miserable by the end of the day. I was an absolute wreck. I seemed to forget that I deserved all the misery because by the time Wendy had gotten home, I was already begging her for money to go buy just a little. I needed it just so I could feel a little bit happier because fuck, I just felt so sick.

I was shaking and achy all over and I hated myself and everyone else but nothing else compared to how much I just wanted a little bit to sniff or rub on my gums or something… I just wanted to stop feeling.

I turned my room over twice looking for spare change, but I had already cleaned myself out. I was too tired to do it a third time, so I tried to sleep, but every time I shut my eyes I was back in that bathtub in Brighton Beach… but the man standing behind me, fucking himself into me without so much as a warning wasn't the same john from before. "HERE WE GO, SLUT!" he shouted in a familiar, familiar voice that I didn't want to hear.

I woke up with phantom pains all over and then remembered that I already ached everywhere. I barely made it to the bathroom before I puked until there was nothing, absolutely _nothing_ left in me.

When I trudged back into my room, I realized that only about twenty minutes had passed since I tried to sleep off my cravings.

"Fuck!" I shouted, kicking the bedside table, sending my alarm clock crashing into the trash can.

I didn't have the strength to keep feeling angry. I collapsed onto the mattress face first and tried to sleep again, but this time I was in the kitchen with cereal raining down on me and the distant, familiar, familiar voice saying, "You liked it. It's okay that you liked it. Everything's going to be okay."

I woke up again screaming, "_Liar_! Call me your fucking angel?"

* * *

Sometime during the morning when Wendy had gone to work, I found myself lying awake, staring up at the ceiling that looked so much like _his_ ceiling. I couldn't get rid of the nightmares. I couldn't get rid of the shakes and the pain. Worst of all, I couldn't get rid of that constant desire for coke. Just a little, and you'll be be fine, I kept hearing a voice say.

I realized the clock was still in the trashcan and grabbed for it. "Shit!" I shouted as a sharp pain cut into my finger. I lifted my hand to find a red line of blood slipping from the tip. It had been cut on a stray shard of glass that had been tossed into the bin, glass from that jar I had apparently thrown against the wall.

_You deserve this_.

I reached back inside the trashcan and grasped a larger piece of the glass, holding it gingerly in my palm. I could make out just a faint reflection of myself in it, and it filled me with disgust.

There was a sound of someone entering the apartment, but I was too distracted to care. I ghosted the glass point across the inside of my arm and then dug into the skin just enough to make it bleed, enjoying the way it made me forget about everything else. When I saw that redness, I didn't see anything else.

"Yo, McCormick, you here?" It wasn't Wendy's voice; that was for sure. It was a man's voice. I barely had time to turn my eyes to the door before it opened and for a split second I expected it to be _him_ and another split second I thought it would be _**him**_, but it wasn't either of them.

It was Jay's roommate, the Sid Vicious wannabe. I stared blankly at him, and he stared blankly right back at my arm.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, voice weirdly soft.

"Wendy asked me and Jay to come check on you when we could. What the fuck are you doing?" he asked. When I just stared at him, he cursed and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me into the bathroom to wash the blood off. I clutched the piece of glass in my hand until it started to bleed as well, and he yelled at me and snagged the bloody piece of glass away.

I just stared at my arm under the faucet, tracing the scratched letters there with my eyes over and over and over again.

S

L

U

T

_You deserve this_.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

(Eric Preston)

We barely stopped driving. We only made detours to grab food we could eat on the way or to take a piss or to get gasoline. Most of the time we'd stop at a gas station so we could get all three at the same time. Brian had been eerily silent through the hours and hours, though I figured he must have just run out of things to talk about. I didn't mind because I was still floating on air from the night before.

I did feel a little bad for taking that kiss when he'd been so drunk and unaware, but he had given it to me, and I couldn't help but be pleased.

After a while we both grew tired of the same cassette tapes, so Brian started shifting through radio stations, hoping to pick up on something. There wasn't much to choose from in the middle of nowhere, so after some effort, we decided to listen to silence.

Silence didn't last too long because Brian started humming. I recognized the tune and cut in singing, horribly off-key, "_Oh, life is bigger, it's bigger than you and you are not me_…"

Brian smirked a little at that and joined in, though he muddled the beginning since he couldn't remember all the words. "…_that I will go, the distance in your eyes… Oh, no I've said too much… I set it up_."

If I remembered correctly, the song was a love song. "_That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight, losing my religion_." Yeah, it was definitely a love song… about a love I didn't quite have, so it was no wonder I knew every word. "_Trying to keep up with you, and I don't know if I can do it_…"

He chimed in, seeming to remember, "_Oh, no, I've said too much. I haven't said enough_."

"_I thought that I heard you laughing. I thought that I heard you sing_…"

"_I uh-think I thought I saw you try_."

It was unfortunate that he didn't really know the words because he was a much better singer than I was. Neither of us were great, but I was just hilariously _bad_. "_Every whisper of every waking hour, I'm choosing my confessions. Trying to keep an eye on you, like a hurt, lost, and blinded fool… Oh, no, I've said too much. I've set it up_."

"_Consider this, consider this the… hint of the century, consider this the slip that brought me to my knees, failed_," he wasn't paying attention to the words unless they were the ones he could barely remember, peppering on his best impression of Michael Stipe, which was absolutely adorable. Brian was so innocent; he probably didn't even know what it felt like to have a crush on anyone. He didn't know what it felt like to be absolutely maddeningly crazy about someone. It was a little bit of a shame, though admittedly for me it seemed to be more of hindrance than anything…

But, hey, I'd gotten that kiss…

I sang, "_Oh, no, I've said too much_."

"That's not where that goes."

"Oh, my mistake."

* * *

(Neil McCormick)

"I don't like you," I said.

"Yeah, figured that out pretty quickly," Sid Vicious-wannabe said, biting down on his cigarette and twirling a line of bandages around my arm. "I don't know if it was the 'fuck off' in the café or the way you screamed at me the other day, but hey, maybe I'm just good at reading people."

I grunted, trying to squirm away from him. I didn't like being in the bathroom. It reminded me too much of that night in Brighton Beach.

"So, what's the significance of the word anyway? Not what I would have carved into my arm."

"None of your fucking business."

He shrugged, stepping back to observe his handiwork, removing the cigarette from his mouth. "You know, Wendy told me to call her and tell her if anything happened. I'm pretty sure this qualifies as anything."

"Fuck you."

Julian… was that his name?... shrugged again. "You can't stop me from calling her. Do you need me to get all the knives and shit out of the house so you don't go killing yourself? I may have to take the bed sheets too."

I glared him down with as much strength as I could muster.

"Ooh, the angry eyes. Now I feel threatened," he said sarcastically. "Hate to break it to you, McCormick, but a faggot suffering from withdrawal isn't really high on my list of fears."

I jumped to my feet then and slammed him against the wall. I was seeing red again, only this time it was all in my head, and I was so pissed I was ready to kill him. "I don't need your fucking help, but even more I don't need your fucking attitude! If you want to talk shit to me, you'd better be higher on the list of people I give a fuck about! You say another goddamned word, and I'll make sure you remember that much, and God damn it, you'd _better_ feel threatened!"

He stammered a little, and I realized he couldn't talk back because I'd pressed my arm across his throat. I stepped back, breathing heavily through my nose, and I felt somewhat lightheaded and sat back down on the toilet.

He coughed a little, rubbing his throat. "Okay. I get it," he sputtered through coughs and gasps for air. "You mean business. Sorry. Jesus, what made you so fucking defensive?"

"Just go. Call Wendy or don't. I don't fucking care." I was exhausted. I'd used up all my energy on that jackass…

"I really don't know if I should leave you here by yourself right now."

"Get out. We're not friends. What happens to me is none of your business."

"Yeah, but I actually kind of like Wendy, and I really like that Jay lets me live with him, so I have to kind of really like Wendy… So, what happens to you is, very unfortunately, my business. Jay volunteered us _both_ to come make sure you were still alive every hour or so, and that's why I'm here. No, we're not friends. In fact, I think you're annoying as fuck, and I don't even know why she's friends with you or why anyone would be."

"I don't know either."

And I was back to that again, apparently.

He didn't get silent and wary and worried like Wendy did. He rolled his eyes. "Don't know why you think you can drag me into your pity party, but you can't. I'm not gonna feel sorry for you, and I'm not gonna buy you coke. Deal with it yourself. This is retarded. I'm done."

He left me standing in the bathroom doorway, staring after him, and I had that weird feeling I'd had that day Brian left my room. I kind of wished he would come back.

Surprisingly enough, he did, a couple of hours later, muttering curse words under his breath while he placed his palm against my forehead to check for fever while I pretended to be asleep.

* * *

(Brian Lackey)

We were both wiped out by the time we reached Harrisburg. Eric almost fell asleep in the spaghetti he'd ordered from the cheap faux-Italian restaurant we were at, and I could have shared the same sentiment if I hadn't dozed in the car a couple of times.

"Holding up okay?" I asked him after his head momentarily tilted forward to touch his chin to his chest.

"Uh… yeah, yeah, I'm just… yeah, I'm fine," he said, voice already dreamy.

"I can drive to the hotel."

He extended his arm to me. "Here, twist my arm," he joked, and I did. "Okay, you can drive."

I chuckled, and he gave a sleepy impersonation of a laugh. "So…" I said, picking at the little bit of food left on my plate. "New York tomorrow, huh…"

"Yep," he nodded, leaning his cheek on his fist. "You ready?"

"…I don't know…" I admitted. "I have to be honest with you; I still don't really know what to say. I thought I was so sure about it that night I decided to go, but… everything… It's so different now."

"Well, what did you want to say to him before?"

I shrugged. "I don't really remember… I was really angry then. I guess I just wanted to… understand."

"Understand what exactly?"

"Why he's such a jerk and how he can possibly not care about what happened…" I didn't mean to sound so bitter, but I couldn't help it. Maybe I was still a little angry at him after all… Maybe I just hated him. Both seemed likely.

"Neil's always been like that, at least as long as I've known him. Wendy says he has a big black hole where his heart's supposed to be, and I think that she's totally right. Neil is pretty much incapable of feeling anything for anyone but himself. I guess it comes with the job."

"He wasn't always a… you know…" I looked around at the other restaurant patrons. They didn't notice. "I mean, I can't say I knew him really well or anything when he was a kid, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't much different… I mean, he- he…" I felt all of the badness come bubbling back up, so I stopped myself midsentence.

Eric grasped my hand and squeezed it to give me self-assurance. "Just speak from your heart. If he doesn't listen, then he doesn't listen. All that you can do is try."

"I'd hate to think we wasted all this time and money just because-"

"Not a single second of this trip was wasted!" he exclaimed, seeming to find some energy reserve from somewhere inside of him. "You're healing, and I don't think this would have been able to happen if you'd been back at home. I'm so grateful for this trip. I don't regret one single moment."

I paused, glancing down at the hand that was still there on top of mine, unabashedly lingering… and I found that I didn't mind in the slightest because it was so innocent, just like grade-schoolers on the playground. Eric had long fingers, and he took care of his nails. He had pretty hands, not like my nail-bitten, pale fingers.

"You're right," I said then, adjusting my glasses. "I don't regret any of it either… except for maybe all that wine. I probably shouldn't have drunk so much. I don't remember anything about that."

"We danced like fools, and you threw up on my boots," he said too quickly for it to be the whole truth, and for some reason, he blushed.

"Sorry about that," was all I said in response.

When we got back to the hotel, we collapsed into the mattress. Somehow during the night, we got tangled together in some sort of haphazard embrace, his nose buried in my hair, and it was just… nice. I was content with sleeping like that for hours, or at least until his arm went numb underneath my pillow and he mumbled and moved it.

* * *

(Wendy Peterson)

Julian came into my work looking worn out, and I saw a slight bruise on his throat where his usual collar had been.

I didn't have to ask because he came right to me and said, "Your friend is a fucking psychopath. You're aware of this, aren't you?"

"What did he do?" I asked.

"Well, I didn't give this bruise to myself," he grumbled, slumping into a stool. "When I went by there a couple hours ago, I found him with a piece of glass to his arm. I bandaged him up, and then he threw me against the wall and tried to choke me."

I stared at him for a long moment, and after that he averted his gaze. "I… may have provoked him… a little… but not enough for him to fucking strangle me!"

Jay had warned me that Julian was a bit of a hot-head. I didn't care about that. "He was cutting himself?" I asked, horrified.

"S-sorta… I mean, he wasn't going in deep or anything, just kind of running over the surface. I doubt it'll scar. I bandaged him up, and when I checked on him again he was asleep, so he's… fine's not the right word. I got rid of all the glass though, and Jay said he'd check on him in about an hour. Sucks that you can't just get a second off to go check on him yourself."

"I've been working double shifts just to cover rent, with his lack of input." I rubbed the bridge of my nose, sighing. "Also, you're rambling. As long as he's okay, I'm okay. You got rid of anything sharp?"

"Took it all back to my place. That doesn't mean the prick won't find some other way to…" he trailed off when he saw the look on my face. "Sorry."

I poured him a cup of coffee and handed it over. "I appreciate the help. I just can't do it all on my own, but he refused to go to a clinic. Said he could do it himself."

"You need to stop listening to that dirt bag. What's the significance of the word 'slut'?"

His question caught me off guard, so I was left stammering for a second. After that second, all I could say was, "What?"

He wet his lips and averted his eyes the way he always did when he didn't want to admit something, sipping on the coffee. "He carved it into his arm."

"I… I don't know what it means…" I managed to say, and the worst part was that it was the truth. Sure, Neil was a hustler, a prostitute, a glorified (or maybe not) _whore_. He'd never seemed to have a problem with it before. It was nearly possible that the mark he'd carved into his arm was in some warped sense of glory… but the sick feeling that pooled in my gut led me to believe that my intuition knew otherwise. Why that version of the word? Why in scratches and not in ink? Why at_ all_, mostly, but I couldn't figure it out.

I realized I'd been staring into space for a good thirty seconds and dropped my eyes to prevent it from continuing. "Listen…" I told him quietly so that no one else in the place could hear. "Neil… he… he's a hustler, or he was in the past."

"Yeah. Figured that out when you yelled at him about 'hustling again' after he told you he sucked some guy's cock in the parking lot."

Subtle, Julian was not.

I formed my mouth into a hard line, hesitating. "Well, he was never ashamed of his line of work. In fact, he was sickeningly proud of it."

"In Neil McCormick's head, Neil McCormick can only do great things," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Why are you friends with him? Even he doesn't know."

I tried to shake off the memory of that '_I don't know_' and continued. "You're not listening to me. Why would he put that word in his arm if he wasn't bothered by it?"

He shrugged. "Ask him. I doubt he'll tell you though."

I sagged, feeling lost. I wished Jay was there instead of Julian because at least Jay attempted to support me.

Julian noticed this and offered weakly, "maybe he just realized how fucked up it is."

"As fucked up as he is on the inside, hustling looks pretty tame," I replied bitterly. "Drink your damn coffee."

"Yes, ma'am," he teased, grinning all of his teeth at me.

* * *

I met up with Jay at the door to the apartment. "How is he?" I asked.

He stepped aside to let me in, and I found Neil watching television with his knees up to his chest. He looked like a ghost in the blue light of the television, especially with the tales-from-the-crypt look on his face.

"He's been eating," Jay offered, but then added, "but he's been throwing it all up." I looked back at him and noticed the tremors.

I sat down next to him and placed a hand against his back. I was almost surprised that he turned to look at me. "It's about time someone I actually _like_ got here," he mumbled. "Stop sending your boyfriend and his fuck-buddy to check on me. I hate them." He laid his head on my shoulder and sighed through his nose.

"Thanks," I said to Jay who shrugged and kissed my forehead.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Neil made a gross noise in his throat, even though Jay's statement had been directed at me. After the door shut, I grumbled, "Did you have to do that?"

"Not really," he replied. "I don't hate him so bad. At least he's fucking quiet… except he's always asking if I'm okay. Do I _look_ like I'm fucking okay?"

"Julian told me that your cut yourself," I said instead of answering his question because it was a stupid one. Of course he didn't look okay. "Why?"

"I don't know. I just wanted to focus on something other than the fact that I don't have any fucking coke."

"Why did you carve that word into your arm?"

"It seemed appropriate."

"Why?"

"Because it's what I am, and I deserve it."

I asked him what he meant by that, but he had zoned out. They were playing an old black and white movie on the television… _Casablanca_. I had never been much for the old style of films, preferring something bloody and exciting, but…

"Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'," said the girl on screen.

"Why, I can't remember it, Miss Ilsa. I'm a little rusty on it," said the man, apparently Sam.

"I'll hum it for you," apparently Ilsa said and did so.

Eventually he started singing it. "_You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply… as time goes by… and when two lovers woo, they still say, 'I love you', on that you can't rely… No matter what the future brings… as time goes by…_"

Neil hated himself. He didn't know how to love.

I cried silently and hoped he didn't notice.

Of course he didn't. He was barely awake against my shoulder, mumbling to himself.

The worst part was… that there was nothing that I could do to fix it.

Maybe he really was better off dead...

I cursed myself for thinking that.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

(Brian Lackey)

That night while we were tangled into each other just a few breaths short of a coma, I started having a dream. It was a little hazy, and it wasn't scary, and it was kind of dizzy.

In the dream, Eric and I danced like fools, just like he had said, and I threw up on his shoes, just like he had said. He didn't say that I kissed him though, even though it was a kiss that even a grandmother would scoff at. Maybe he thought it wasn't worth mentioning, but I was pretty sure that it was. I tried to convince myself that it didn't actually happen and it was all in my head, but that made me even _more_ uncomfortable.

I woke up nervous, but Eric just absently curled his fingers into my hair and hummed. I wasn't sure what to be more distressed about: the fact that I had kissed Eric or the fact that I was completely okay with kissing Eric. I supposed it was only natural, or at least I convinced myself that it was, since Eric was one of two boys I wouldn't panic from kissing; Eric because I trusted him, and Neil because I'd done it before and I wanted a good reason to punch him.

As if what he had done with Heider wasn't a good enough reason…

I didn't really blame Neil now, though. When I'd first figured out the truth, when he'd shut me out as no different than anybody else he'd fucked, I'd hated him and blamed every single thing on him. He was the one who offered to take me home. He was the one who started on me first. He was the one who never told anyone, ever.

He was the one who had _liked_ it.

I remembered now though, once I'd gotten past that heavy cloud of hate and distress and fear and every horrible emotion ever fathomed crammed into one, that he was eight years old then. He was eight years old, just like me. We were the same age.

I closed my eyes again and tried to sleep. Neil's face with that awkward, pained look appeared on my eyelids, and I felt his shirt tail wipe at my nose. I hadn't thought about it before, but that… _that_ was an awfully caring gesture from someone like him. The way he had cradled me in his arms and shushed me had been caring too, his long, ice cold fingers plastered against my head and shoulder.

Neil McCormick was an enigma. More accurately, he was confusing as fuck.

* * *

Eric got up before I did. He was already dressed when I finally pulled my head up from the pillow.

"Morning," he greeted, crouched over his duffel bag that he was rearranging so that it would actually zip up all the way.

I blinked hazily at him and decided to be bold. "You know, you shouldn't wear all that make-up all the time. You have such a nice face already."

He blinked and then stared at me in surprise, and then he blushed visibly. "Ah… oh… Okay."

"You don't have to be so bashful about it," I mumbled, my body quietly whispering to me that five more minutes of rest would be wonderful.

"Well, I mean…" he looked down at his duffel bag, scratching the back of his neck, and mumbled, "it's just that no one's ever really… told me anything like that before… You know, except for my mom, and moms don't count."

I nodded in agreement and forced myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed, rolling my shoulders. "Can I ask you a question?" I asked, grabbing my glasses off the nightstand.

"You just did," Eric offered, and his smile was filled with a little more than relief that I was changing the subject. "Ask away."

"Did I um…" Now it was my turn to be bashful, I guessed. "Did I kiss you the other night when I was drunk?"

He paled and stared at me like a deer in the headlights, and he really didn't have to answer me at that point, but he did anyway because that was just who Eric was. "S-sort of."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I was uh… I was really drunk, and I guess I just went too far, and I hope that you can forgive me for…"

"No, no, I'm not mad about it. I'm not… Actually, I kind of… well…" he shrugged noncommittally but couldn't hide the smile creeping up on his mouth. "I kind of liked it… you know…" Then, he jumped right back into fear and waved his hands dramatically at me. "Not that I meant anything by that, you know! I mean, I know how things are with you and all that, and I mean, I don't even know if you're queer like me, and if you are that's fine, and if you aren't, that's fine too because I'd accept you and love you no matter how you were because we're such good friends, and I'd never want to ruin that for us-"

I finally managed to cut off his frantic stream of words by asking, "Did you just say that you loved me?"

His whole face went red, and he worried his bottom lip under his top row of teeth. "Well, yeah, I mean… you know… as friends. Platonically. Not saying that I couldn't or wouldn't love you romantically if you were… so inclined… I think I need to lock myself in the bathroom and cry out this humiliation."

"I didn't mean to embarrass you!" I cried, stumbling out of the bed and very ungracefully slamming my chin right to the floor. "Don't… don't cry."

He fought back the urge to laugh at me, even in his distress. "I didn't intend to pour my heart out to you just now, and I can't help but feel bad about it because… I don't want to lose you because of my own stupid feelings."

I righted myself into a sitting position, legs folded. "Your feelings aren't stupid, and you should never feel bad about how you feel. I'd feel way worse if you thought that you couldn't talk to me when I've told you so much about myself. I don't want to think that you can't trust me."

"I'd trust you with my life, and it's not that I've been keeping this from you because I don't trust you… It's just… I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around me. I like being your soft place to fall, and I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I'm trying to get into your pants or anything because I'm not. I'm perfectly happy just being with you."

I paused, licking my lips, and nodded to show I understood. "You're the only person I do feel comfortable around, and I don't think anything's gonna change that… I trust you one hundred percent. I know you'd never do something like that unless I wanted you to. That's just the kind of guy that you are."

"I still feel like I should apologize… I mean, I should have told you, but I was afraid you'd freak out."

"Well, am I freaking out?"

"…No…"

"Then what are you worried about?" I asked, smiling.

"A delay, maybe?" he shrugged.

I snorted and got to my feet before offering a hand to help him up. His hand was warm, not like Neil's at all.

"Hey, Eric."

"What?"

"Why do you feel guilty when you didn't even kiss me back?"

"I… well…" Instead of answering the question, he decided on, "well, who could kiss you back with a kiss like that anyway? I mean, it barely lasted a second. I don't know if it even really counts."

"I'm not really sure about the rules of kissing, so maybe it doesn't," I agreed, mostly because he seemed to be shucking off his guilt by saying so. "It was more like the kind of kiss you give your mom anyway, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, kind of," he chuckled. "You're right. I can't believe how ridiculous I was to freak out. I'm sorry."

I was glad to get that impending panic attack out of the way, but I couldn't pretend that our late breakfast of McDonald's cheeseburgers wasn't a little awkward.

We managed to get out on the road around two in the afternoon.

* * *

(Neil McCormick)

"Fuck… _Fuck_… Why won't you sleep?" I asked my reflection. It wasn't really that I wasn't sleeping but that I couldn't sleep without being woken up in absolute fucking repulsion. Whenever my need for coke would taper off even a little, I'd fall asleep, and then I would really, _really_ need it because it kept me from feeling so bad.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. "McCormick, you still alive in there?"

I wanted to scream at him, at that Sid Vicious wannabe and his jackass friend who stole Wendy from me, but I just didn't have the strength, holding onto the sink just to stay standing. I'd just puked up a meal. I'd only managed to keep it down for a few hours.

He knocked again. "I'm not joking, you know. If you don't answer, I'm gonna have to break down the door."

That brought a rather particular image to mind, and I felt my face ache with the phantom pain of a butter knife slapping against my cheek. There was an echo of a door slamming against the wall in my ears along with a rush of water and…

I dry-heaved into the sink. "Can I get one goddamn second to myself without you fucking bothering me? Why don't you and your boyfriend go the hell home and leave me alone?"

I thought I heard him mumble, "Why do I even fucking bother? Jay, you're up."

I splashed water on my face and stumbled out of the bathroom. Jay and Julian had taken up residence on the couch. I made a mental note to strangle Wendy when she got home for leaving me in the hands of these shitheads.

"Holding up all right, McCormick?" Jay asked, plastering on a smile that was just begging me to knock the teeth out of.

I set my jaw and decided to sit down at the kitchen table. I immediately felt myself slumping over. "You go days without sleep and puking up all of your meals and having some annoying motherfuckers stick their noses up your ass all day and see how you like it." I lit up a cigarette, the only thing that could calm my nerves even a little.

"Ungrateful son of a bitch," Julian mumbled like I couldn't hear him. He wasn't worth the effort anyway.

_Oh, what the hell_, I thought, thinking that getting out some of my frustration might improve my spirits a little. "I didn't ask you to come here. I don't want you here. Why should I be grateful to you?"

"You think _we_ want to be here? You're a miserable little prick, McCormick, and at least Jay is gonna get sex for this. I'm not getting shit for being here, so the least you could do is be glad that I even put forth that much of an effort."

"Then why are you here?" I asked.

He looked at Jay and then at the wall. "Because…"

"Because if you don't suck Mr. Jay's cock, he'll kick you out?" I smirked, "...or is it that you hope he'll let you suck his pretty little cock?"

"FUCK YOU!" he shouted, jumping to his feet, and Jay had to hastily grab hold of his arm to prevent him from pile-driving me into the wall. "I ought to kick your snide little ass, McCormick! Somebody should teach you a God damned lesson! Maybe Wendy lets you do whatever you want, but if I had my way, you damn sure wouldn't!"

I just sat there, smoking. When I spoke, it was a voice that wasn't my own, deep and bitter and even a little frightening to me. "You don't know one God damn thing about me, so don't start acting like you do, you pretentious son of a bitch. If you experienced even _one_ _piece_ of my life, you'd be slitting your wrists in the bathroom."

Jay was staring at me like I was some creature from another planet while Julian gaped like a fish for a moment before saying, weaker than he intended, "oh, yeah?"

I put the cigarette back to my lips and sucked on it. I felt like my insides were burning in the most unpleasant sense of the word.

"You think you're the only one who's ever had a drug habit? That would be just like you, wouldn't it," Julian said, glaring with as much strength as he could muster, which wasn't a lot since I'd thrown him off his game.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, heroin killed your precious Sid Vicious," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I don't have a drug habit. I haven't been snorting coke recently, now have I?"

"You don't have a drug habit," he said skeptically, snorting. "Is that why you're in such severe withdrawal that you're cutting yourself and puking all the time and not sleeping? Is that why you're sitting there unshaven, and you haven't bathed in days, and you're still wearing the same clothes from three days ago? Is that why you lost your job and ended up sucking dick on the street corner just to get by?"

"SHUT UP!" I shouted, leaping to my own feet, sending the chair I was sitting in toppling over behind me.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Julian said, gaining valor from my reaction. "My mistake. You didn't suck that guy's cock for money. You just sucked it because you like it. You like sucking cock, don't you, _slut_?"

A red stream of blood came gushing out of my nose then, dribbling thick down over my lips and chin and spattering to the floor. Some drops met the top of my foot, others splattered against my shirt. All I could do was stand there and stare as that voice shouted over and over in my head, "_You know you're getting fucked, slut, whether you like it or not!_"

Through the rushing in my ears and the static in my eyes, I vaguely heard Jay shouting at Julian to get the hell out, and I felt hands grabbing my shoulders and heard Jay's voice go, "Hey, Neil. Neil, can you hear me? Hey!"

I looked him right in the eyes but I couldn't see him. I couldn't see the apartment. All I saw was that man's bathtub drain swirling in spirals of red. All I saw was the red… and I heard Coach say, "Everything's gonna be okay."

"Don't," I said. "DON'T!" I shoved him hard and backed up against the table, and I knew that my lip was trembling. Hell, I knew that all of me was trembling. "Don't touch me, oh, God… Please…" I sank to the floor like a pitiful little kid. Jay just stared at me the way those johns had… that look of disturbed confusion… and I was sure that something was definitely wrong with me, but I wasn't sure if there was any way for me to fix it.

"Neil, what happened to you?" Jay started, but I started screaming.

I screamed, raw and ragged, and tears clouded my vision while I hooked my elbow around the back of a chair just to remain sitting up. "I want Wendy!" I sobbed. "I want my mom!"

"Neil, just, just calm down. Everything's gonna be okay if-"

"FUCK YOU! Never say that to me again!" I wailed and buried my face in my knees.

"What's wrong with you?" he tried.

"I don't know. I don't know!"

I sat there crying and bleeding until my strength gave out and I passed out.

* * *

When I woke up, Wendy was there with a cool hand on my forehead, brushing hair out of my eyes. "Hey," she greeted quietly.

I just stared back at her, wanting to say something, but I couldn't speak because my throat was so clogged. I swallowed at least three times before managing to croak out, "what time is it?"

"It's two in the morning."

I looked away from her at the room, at my room. "You used that money to pay the water bill, right?" I asked.

"Well, yeah."

"That's good."

She kept brushing her fingers through my hair, gently. I wondered if when I'd done it to Brian if it had provided any kind of comfort. It probably didn't, but more curious was why I even cared.

"Is it always gonna be like this?" I asked her.

"No… no…" she cooed. "It'll get easier."

"When?"

"I don't know… Neil… I was thinking."

"I don't want to go to any fucking clinic."

Her hand stilled for a moment. "I know… but it might be for your benefit if…"

"No. No clinics. No shrinks."

She didn't seem to be willing to fight with me over it because she just nodded and said okay, and I felt even worse. She used to fight with me over everything because what happened to me was so fucking… _important_… to her. It may have just been the withdrawal, but at that moment, I really and truly felt that I had lost her. Forever. I'd lost my soul mate. I was alone.

_You deserve this_.

That voice in my head said it again, but this time…

_You deserve this. You deserve this, and every horrible thing that's ever happened to you._

I shut my eyes, but there was no way to shut out that voice, and after a long moment of silence, I told Wendy, quietly…

"I wish I was dead."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

(Wendy Peterson)

I called Jay in a mess of tears after Neil fell asleep. After he calmed me down, he asked me what had happened, and I told him what he'd said. I bit down on my bottom lip hard enough to make it bleed to prevent from flying into another hysterical fit. "I don't know what to do, Jay. I can't help him this way."

"Wendy… it's okay… Just remember that it's the withdrawal talking and keep him away from anything he can use to hurt himself."

I sniffed and dabbed my eyes with my wrist. "This isn't Neil. This isn't him, Jay. Neil is cocky and self-assured and swaggering. He never cries or wishes bad on himself. He's always so cool about everything and smooth-talking, and now he's just… he's _not_."

"Wendy…" Jay said slowly, and my heart skipped a beat for a less than romantic reason. "I have to tell you something…"

"Wh-what?"

"I think that something happened to Neil. I don't know what it was, but something _happened_ to him. Something drove him to drugs and to this self-destructive nature."

"I know… I _know_ that, but he won't tell me. All I have to go on is this shift in demeanor and… and…" I could have sworn my heart actually stopped there for a second.

"And what, Wendy?"

"There's… There's a shirt that he tucked away in his bottom drawer that I found when I was cleaning… It was… It was covered in blood. I thought that maybe something happened when he went back to Hutchinson because he came back so different, but now I'm not so sure. Do you think that maybe something happened at work, and that's why he didn't go back when he was supposed to?"

"I don't think so."

I was grasping at straws. I wished I could find an answer in my head that didn't inevitably lead me in the direction of having a panic attack and throwing things for being so stupid, but there wasn't really any options that didn't. Maybe he beat someone up. Maybe someone beat him up. Maybe he saw Coach Heider again. Maybe nothing happened, and he was already doing coke, and he just got a nosebleed.

"I hate this," I mumbled, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom. "I'm sorry that I forced you guys into this. I shouldn't have… Maybe I should just take Neil back to Hutchinson and have his mom and Eric take care of him… but there are so many crazy fuckers even there."

"I don't know, Wendy… All I know is that there's something fucking with him up in that head of his, maybe even more than one thing. Julian set him off today, the jackass. I've put the chain on the door so he can't get in, so I'm guessing he's staying with someone else tonight. Do you want to come over?"

"No. No, I can't leave Neil here by himself."

Thunder cracked outside.

"Okay… well, call me if you need me to do anything. I can get you some take-out or something."

"Yeah, or something… Okay…"

Before he hung up, he said, "I love you." I wished it made me feel better.

* * *

(Eric Preston)

It was raining so heavily I could hardly see the road when we got into New York… not that it mattered. Traffic was bumper to bumper, so we were just sitting ducks most of the time. "Pretty bad storm, huh," I said to Brian.

Brian nodded, staring contemplatively out the windshield. I knew he was thinking about Neil and this meeting, and I could practically hear his heart racing from the nerves. "You okay?" I asked.

He nodded again and swallowed. "I'm sorry… I just have a… real bad feeling."

I didn't like that. It made _me_ have a bad feeling.

"Well, everything'll be all right," I offered, squeezing his shoulder before turning my attention back to the road. "This traffic is fucking ridiculous. We aren't even moving!"

Brian turned his gaze on me then, and I couldn't help but look back as soon as I felt his eyes on me. "This could change everything about everything," he said, voice shaky.

"Or it could change nothing," I said, and I assumed he was talking about Neil. He probably was.

Still, I forgot about all that when he leaned in and kissed me in earnest, upgrading from a grandmother kiss to a fourth-grade kiss. When he pulled away, he went back to looking out the windshield, and traffic didn't seem so bad anymore.

I couldn't shake that bad feeling he'd transferred to me though.

* * *

I parked on the curb illegally just like everyone else. "Here we are," I said slowly.

Brian looked up at the building that had been the address I'd sent my unanswered postcards to. It loomed before us under the rain clouds like some kind of beast threatening to swallow anyone who came too close. There were police sirens in the distance, which I seemed to have been unable to avoid the sound of since I'd gotten into the city, and I heard a dog bark for good measure.

"Nervous?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said, fists clenched on his knees. "I'm not sure why… I think that's why I'm so nervous." He looked at me for a long moment, and I was ready to tell him that we could just turn around and drive back and no one would be the wiser because I didn't want him to feel so pained and sick and uncomfortable if I could help it. That moment passed though while I sat there, dumbly not saying anything, and he mumbled, "well… let's go."

We got out into the downpour and ran to the stoop in the attempt to maintain a certain level of dryness. We were still soaked through while we climbed up staircase after staircase, passing by some pretty sketchy looking folks who didn't give us so much as a second glance (gratefully).

I knocked rhythmically.

I heard some shuffling around and the door cracked open just barely, chain tight against the doorframe. Wendy's familiar eye peeked out. "Oh, my God… Eric?"

"Surprise," I said, smiling the best smile I could muster.

She shut the door, undid the chain, and stepped out into the hallway. "What the hell… What are you doing here?" she asked, hugging me despite how much I must have looked like a drowned rat.

"Spring break," I said. "Brian said he'd like to see New York."

"Brian?" she questioned, knitting her eyebrows together. She then seemed to realize he was standing there. "Oh, I'm sorry… Hi… I'm Wendy." She extended her hand and Brian shook it awkwardly, and I could tell that he was thinking exactly what I was thinking.

Neil hadn't told her about him.

Neil told Wendy about _everything_.

"Nice to meet you," Brian mumbled.

"So, what, no welcoming cup of coffee? No towel with which to dry ourselves off?" I teased, but all my humor was gone when she turned back to me with a pale, kind of nervous look.

"Um… I hate to say it, but now is kind of… It's kind of a bad time."

"Why? What happened?" I asked. That bad feeling Brian gave me was quickly magnifying itself into an absolutely dreadful, horrible, despicable feeling.

"Neil is… he's sick. You can't see him."

That was a lie if I'd ever heard one. She wasn't good at it like Neil. Here I would have thought he'd have taught her how by now.

"Is he okay?" Brian asked.

"Um… sort of… Let's go get coffee somewhere else. I get a discount where I work-"

"I need to talk to Neil," Brian said. She stared at him as if he had just sprouted from the earth suddenly, like she'd just now noticed him all over again. "I don't care if he's sick. It's important, and it can't wait."

"Why do you need to… How do you even know him?"

Brian swallowed, knowing what he would reveal with the information, but said it anyway. "Neil and I were on the same little league team."

Her eyes widened as the sentence sunk in. She understood exactly what that meant. "Oh, my God…" she whispered, questioning Brian with her eyes. He just nodded curtly.

"All the same," Brian continued after the initial shock seemed to wear off of her, "you guys can go get coffee… I'd kind of like to talk to him alone, if I can."

"He's not… really in the right state of mind for discussion," Wendy said, expression like she'd swallowed something unpleasant and was trying to hide it.

"Why? He can't be that sick," I said.

"He's…" she hesitated, and I realized it must have been the truth leaving a bad taste in her mouth. "He's sick. He's going through cocaine withdrawal."

My heart dropped to my feet, and all I could do was stand there. Useless, as always.

"When did he start…?" I started to say.

She answered with a shrug. "I don't know. He's been kind of fucked up since he got back. You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?" She wasn't accusatory; she was desperate.

"I might," Brian said, and I looked at him standing there, dripping, fists clenched to his sides, jaw set… _fearless_… and I thought… he looked so grown-up.

"You'll stay with him?" Wendy asked Brian then. "Even if he pisses you off, you won't leave."

Brian shook his head. "I won't leave. I owe him that much. Both of you should go catch up. Come back in a couple hours."

She placed a hand on his cheek in a mom way… no… in the way she had placed her hand on Neil's cheek the day she had left. "I don't know who you even are… but… if you can fix him…"

Brian shook his head. "I can't do that. No one can… except him. I might be able to help him though. I should at least try."

I wanted to kiss his whole face and shout from the rooftops that I loved him more than anyone in the whole universe. Instead, I just let Wendy take me by the hand and pull me down the stairs, all the while with her yelling, "You should be careful! He can get violent! He has really random triggers, and don't give him any money!"

I watched him slowly grow smaller as we descended the steps; I never took my eyes off of him. I even looked up at him through the floor when I could no longer see him, and I wished, hoped, and prayed… _Please let everything be okay_.

"Why did you bring him here, Eric?" Wendy asked suddenly.

I realized we were in the lobby. "I had to. He told me that he needed to come here and see Neil again."

"He saw him before?"

"Yeah… Christmas Eve. Brian couldn't remember what happened to him. Neil told him the truth."

Wendy opened her mouth and closed it a second later. "Jesus…" she said in exasperation, touching a hand to her forehead. "So… why did Neil come here all messed up when that guy, Ryan-"

"Brian," I corrected.

"—Brian is perfectly fine? That's some shitty logic for you there."

"He wasn't fine when we left. He's been getting better… slowly…" I said, admiration shining through.

"Is he your boyfriend or something?" she asked, apparently wanting to change the subject somehow.

"Not exactly," I said. There wasn't much more I could add to that.

It seemed like a long time passed where we just stood there, her still holding my hand like a lost child and looking at the floor like she'd just been punished. "Did… Did Neil say anything to you about something happening to him?"

"No," I said. "Does he ever?"

"I guess not."

I thought back on that Christmas Eve when I'd seen him again, discovering this new, colder, harder Neil McCormick in his place and… "He was all bruised up. Said he got mugged on his way to the airport."

"Do you think that's true?"

"I wish I did."

She looked like she was about to cry. I had a feeling if she started the waterworks, I wouldn't be far behind. It left me with a squirming fear in my gut. Just how bad off was Neil? I felt guilty for leaving Brian there, and I was tempted to go running back up those stairs, proverbial guns a-blazing to rescue him from the beast Neil had apparently become.

But again, I just stood there.

_Useless_, as always.

Wendy squeezed my hand tightly as if she would never let go.

I had a feeling she could relate to how useless I felt. I wished I had called her beforehand and found out what we were up against in all that time I'd spent hoping that Brian would change his mind.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, after all.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

(Brian Lackey)

I stepped inside the apartment quietly, shutting the door with my back. The first thing I noticed was how much of a mess it was. The second thing I noticed was a drop on the floor that looked alarmingly like blood…

I checked my nose out of nervous habit, even though I hadn't been over there. It was clean of blood anyway. It had been for a while actually.

I walked in slowly, hand brushing against the wall, taking in everything. The feeling was similar to Christmas Eve in Coach Heider's house; or rather what was once his house. It had that same feeling of being watched and of the thrumming in the air warning that something was about to happen. The place was dimly lit, and the stacks of things, and the dirt, and the shadows all reminded me of that house, even though they weren't similar at all.

This was where Neil lived, not Heider.

So, where was he?

A nagging part of me didn't want to know and hoped that maybe he'd climbed out the fire escape and run off because he sensed me or something, but I pushed forward from the wall and stepped into the middle of the room because I sensed that he was in the apartment. I _knew_ that he was there.

I combed my hands through my hair idly, sending droplets of water flying all over. I chewed on my bottom lip and looked back at the front door, nearly chickening out, but then I heard a moan from the room across from me.

That was him. I knew it was. It certainly wasn't anyone else.

I pressed my hands against the wood of the door, hesitating. Would he fly into a rage if he saw me? Would he tell me to get out and then not acknowledge I was there until Wendy and Eric got back? I really didn't know him that well, so I didn't know what he would do, and it made my heart leap up into my throat. Neil wasn't really one to speak up or anything. The one time I'd really talked to him, he was full of swallowed words and steely gazes. I didn't know if I was more nervous with the idea of him shouting, or the idea of him just staring at me like he didn't even know who I was.

I swallowed the metaphorical heart back down and decided I'd draw it out as long as I could and have him come to me. I knocked.

No response.

I knocked again. Maybe he wasn't in there, but of course he was; I'd heard him.

"I don't know why you're fucking knocking…" I heard him grumble. "Never stopped you from barging in here before…"

The door swung open, allowing us to meet again face to face.

He just stared, lips parted like he'd wanted his jaw to drop but forgot how to do it. I was horrified, but not because he was staring.

Neil looked terrible, and that was putting it lightly. His dark circles were so heavy that he looked like he'd been punched in both eyes. He was gray with light stubble on his chin, and his lips were chapped and cracked in several places. He was bone thin with long, scraggly, greasy hair hanging in his eyes and across protruding cheek bones, and there was an unpleasantly grisly spot on his head where he looked like he'd been injured somehow. He smelled horrible, and his clothes had stains on them (some of which looked distinctly like blood). His arm had been bandaged up along with his hand on the opposite arm, and the bandages were ragged like he'd been picking and scratching at them. The dirt under his nails was so thick that it was nearly black… and the worst part was that none of that compared to the dead, desolate look in his eyes.

I swallowed and took in a shuddered breath. He looked so drastically different from the Neil I'd seen just three or so months ago that I didn't know what to do. He didn't even look _alive_.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, almost like he didn't believe I was even really standing there. I swore he expected me to dissipate on the spot like some sort of illusion that had shown up there solely to fuck with him.

"I… that is… um…" I stammered, unable to bring my voice up higher than a whisper for this corpse version of Neil McCormick that had somehow reanimated and stood (or rather slumped) before me. There was something absolutely terrifying about this once human being, like he'd come straight from the scariest horror movie or haunted house I'd ever frequented…

And then I realized it wasn't terrifying at all.

Just terribly, terribly sad.

"What happened to you?" I asked, trying to ignore the thundering of my heart against my chest. Anything I had intended to say on the way up the stairs was out the window and completely forgotten about.

"I asked you first," he said snidely. He reached out then and touched my face, pressing his dirty fingers into my skin as if to check if I was real. They sank into my cheek and grazed against my cheekbone and then brushed across my lips. A realization seemed to dawn on him that I actually was there.

"I… I came here to see you. What happened to you?"

He smirked, and his smirk was falser than I remembered, and his teeth were yellower than I remembered and said, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug."

"Yeah… I can see that…" I said, completely unable to think of anything else to respond to that with.

"Well…" he said, and that false smirk had already faded away like it had never been there, "you saw me. Now you can leave."

"I'm not going to leave. Wendy and Eric left me here, and I promised her I wouldn't leave you here alone." I hoped that my voice didn't falter.

He glanced at me sideways while he was fishing a cigarette out of his pocket. It looked like it was his last one. "You don't have any loyalties to Wendy," he mumbled, peeking inside the box. "Why do I always run out of cigarettes when you're around?" He lit it but ended up in a coughing fit over it, dropping it to the floor, and he looked so young, so young, so _young_.

And then I remembered that he was my age, and that left me even more confused.

"I'm not leaving," I repeated, straightening my shoulders, and stamped out his cigarette, "so you might as well talk to me."

"I don't have anything to say to you," he said.

"Then, you can listen."

He blinked and stepped forward, and I stepped back, afraid he was going to do something drastic (Wendy had said he'd been prone to violence lately), but instead he just wandered into the living room like he'd never been there before and sat down on the couch. He sniffed.

I sat down next to him, folding my hands over my knees and looking around again. "What happened?" I asked.

"I already told you," he said quietly.

"No… that's not what I meant…" I paused, pursing my lips. I was quiet for what felt like a really long time… and then I asked, "Were you really mugged on the way to the airport?"

He looked at me with his eyebrows raised, stunned… and then, he started laughing hysterically. "Are you serious? Are you fucking _serious_?" he asked through gasps of air, and there was absolutely no mirth in his laugh whatsoever. It was the most stilted, uncomfortable sound I'd ever heard, and I had to fight back the urge to squirm further away from him and go running from the apartment in terror.

I waited for his laughter to start dying down, but when it wasn't, I said loudly so that he could hear me, "Yes. I am serious. Were you?"

He shut his mouth, silencing himself, and looked into my eyes. His eyes watered, and he said, quietly…

"No."

He didn't seem to have any laughter left in him after that. He just sat there, gazing at me with a foreign eye.

"What happened?" I asked again.

"Do you remember that summer when you were eight, after the baseball game got rained out?" he asked, smiling, and I could have punched him.

Actually, I did.

I punched him so hard that he nearly toppled off of the couch. He clutched to his jaw with his bandaged hand, and I was sure it would bruise, even though I wasn't that strong. "How dare you ask me such a dumb fucking question?" I seethed, unable to help myself.

"Well, you didn't remember it before," he smugly responded. I refrained from punching him again.

"Of course I remember that night. I can't forget that night no matter how hard I try."

He pulled his face back up, and his eyes were still watering (or were those tears? No, it couldn't be, not Neil McCormick). "Seemed like a valid question. Didn't know if maybe you…" he shrugged it off, deciding explaining himself was a waste of time because it was.

"I asked you, what happened that night before you came back to Hutchinson?" I asked as sternly as I could muster.

"What happened?" he paused, and his little grin faltered, and maybe those were tears in his eyes. "I was abducted by aliens."

I almost hauled off and slapped him, but the sentence sunk into my skin, and I realized that what he was saying wasn't to mock me at all. Those _were_ tears in his eyes.

"Somebody raped you," I said.

The sentence tasted like vomit.

His nose started to bleed almost as soon as the words escaped my mouth, and I watched that red trail of blood like I was looking into a mirror at a face I no longer recognized. He wasn't the one who was supposed to have the nosebleeds. It was supposed to be me.

"What happened?" I asked again, hating myself, but I had to know.

"It was supposed to be like any other job. He drove me back to his place, and he made me snort coke, and then… he, he started making me fuck him with my mouth, and he threw me down on the bed, and I realized that things weren't going right, so I locked myself in his bathroom… and then he, he broke the door open, and he smacked me across the face, and I fell into the tub, and he hoisted my legs up and…" His breath started coming in rapid spurts, like it never reached his lungs, and that thick line of blood was still rolling smoothly down his lip and chin, parallel with the tears. "…and he…"

I pulled my shirt tail out of my pants and wiped his nose with it, silencing him. "I know," I said gently.

He continued anyway. "My head kept banging up against the tub, and he just kept yelling slut, slut, take it all, slut, god, you love it, don't you, slut?... and all I could do was lay there with my ass in the air and fucking take it. He kept ramming into me and beating me over the head with a shampoo bottle, and I just kept watching my blood swirl down the drain… and then I woke up, laying on the street without a coat and without any money and completely alone…"

His head found its way to my shoulder, and I placed a hand into his hair, stroking it gently. He sniffed and ran his wrist across his upper lip, sending a fresh smear of blood across his face.

"And all this time… I've been thinking that I fucking _deserved_ what he did. I deserve it because all that I am is a slut… All I am is a hole for someone to fuck. It's all I ever have been."

And it hit me like lightning, making the hairs on my arms stand on end, and I was sure if I looked in a mirror my pupils would have been blown to smithereens. "Neil," I said, voice barely above a whisper, "I've seeked you out because there's something I need to tell you about yourself that you don't know..."

"What…?" he asked, fist clenching to my sleeve.

_Oh, God_…

I could hardly breathe as I stared upwards at the line between the wall and the ceiling. His head slowly made its way to my lap.

"Neil… you… when you were eight years old, your little league coach molested you... He raped you."

It sounded stupid on one hand, but I knew…

I _knew_.

Neil made a strangled noise, but I pressed on. "He'd take your clothes off, and when there was another boy involved… it was up to you to make it seem fun, like a really cool game you were playing… He'd make you kiss other boys, and sometimes he would kiss you, and then he would go down on you…" He made another whimpering noise, legs squirming. "He'd make you play the five dollar game… where he'd make you do crazy sex things, and if you could do them, he'd give you five dollars… He made you fist him, all the way up to your elbow, and he made you believe he was going to suck you in and devour you completely… and then he'd drive you home and leave you in your driveway… until next time… The end."

He squeaked, which was the only word I could think of to describe the sound, and I looked down at him to see that his eyes were squeezed shut, and his mouth was wide open in a look of revulsion, and there was fresh blood spilling all over his face and on my pants… and then…

He wailed. Between little squeaks and shouts, he started to sob uncontrollably, face continually contorting into something more and more miserable and turn red from lack of air. I shushed him and stroked at his hair, but he just started shivering violently beneath my hands… I kept shushing him, but his noises just got louder and more unbearable and sad, and I knew then all of the the horrible, hateful things he'd ever told to me were lies and every reason why he was Neil McCormick. He was a victim, just like me… except he'd been so unlucky that it had happened to him again. And again. And again and again and again. And then _again_… and he was so young, so young, so _young_. Someone had taken this young, _young_ boy and tainted him until he found himself truthfully believing that he was worthless as anything but an orifice with which to screw into and convinced himself that every single thing that the two men… no, the dozens of men… had done to him… was well deserved. He truly believed he _deserved_ it.

He snorted coke to escape the clutches of those men and of the disgust he had with himself… but it led him to revealing on the outside how he felt on the inside… how he felt repulsive, nauseating… completely unlovable.

He laid there, curled in my lap, half-screaming, and crumbled. He hadn't told anyone because no one would understand. He didn't think he deserved the sympathy… and I found myself trying not to cry as I turned my gaze back to the ceiling, hopelessly shushing him over and over just because I needed to do something…

In the sounds of the police sirens in the distance, I somehow picked out the notes of "Silent Night." The way his wail increased in volume, I felt that he could hear it too, that he could feel how fucking backwards this was and how it should have been _me_ as the sniveling, bloody mess in his lap while_ he_ stared at the ceiling and tried not to care…

And as we sat there, I wanted to tell Neil that it was over now, and that everything would be okay…but it was a lie.

…and besides, I couldn't speak anyway.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

(Brian Lackey)

Eric and Wendy found us there on the couch together hours after they had left. Neil had long since run out of sounds to make and tears to cry and just laid there, sniffling, staring at the black screen of the television set. There were crusty lines of blood dried to his face.

I looked at Eric and Wendy when they entered, having forgotten that they'd even be back, forgotten that we were in New York and not in Hutchinson on that family's couch in Coach Heider's house. Neil never even acknowledged that they'd arrived.

The two of them just stood there, probably at a loss for what to do, while I leaned down over Neil, parting his hair away from his face, which was difficult because some of it had gotten stuck in the dried blood, and whispered, "I'm going to move you now."

He sniffed in response.

I reached underneath him and hoisted him into my arms (which was remarkably easy considering how skinny he was). His head lolled against my shoulder, one arm curling around his stomach while the other dangled lifelessly.

Wendy and Eric were making little sniffling noises behind me, but I did my best to ignore them for fear that a whole new surge of tears would come spilling out of me or Neil and carried him back into the room where I'd found him.

The room was absolutely nasty… It carried that same smell that Neil had, and it was about in the same condition. I pressed him down onto the mattress, listening to its old springs creak in protest. "Wait here," I told him.

I retrieved a wet wash cloth from Wendy and set to cleaning up his face. I cleaned up a little, but his little trashcan could only hold so much, and it was hard to focus with the way he was watching me.

After a while, I was worn out and gave up. He seemed to notice because when I pulled the sheets over him, he took hold of my sleeve. "Don't go," he said… and I heard it all in his gaze because I knew exactly what that meant.

_I don't want to be alone right now_.

I crawled into the bed with him, and he turned around so that he could see me, to make sure I wasn't going anywhere.

We fell asleep looking at each other, holding hands like grade-schoolers.

* * *

The next morning, I awoke alone and discovered via Eric that Neil had checked himself into a rehab center.

Wendy was gone with Neil when I padded into the living room. Eric was sprawled out on the couch looking like he hadn't slept one wink. His attempt to quit smoking had gloriously failed as the ashtray made so clear.

"What did you do?" he asked, astonishment laced in with his sleepiness. "Neil… he… it's…"

"I didn't really do anything," I shrugged. "I just told him the truth is all."

He was too tired to question that, and that wasn't really something I could share with anyone but Neil. I didn't know why, but it just felt too personal. Eric just couldn't understand, and that was okay.

Wendy came back and dozed off on the couch with Eric. I busied myself with cleaning because I was the only one who actually had slept, and I couldn't help but think maybe, just maybe when Neil got back, he'd be happy to have a clean place to lay down in. I found a bloody shirt in his bottom drawer and threw it away, knowing in my heart where it was from. I was tempted to burn it.

I even cooked lunch.

They woke up to the smell of microwaved pizza.

"What happened to this place?" Wendy asked, looking around like she was suspicious that she had been moved somehow. Eric rubbed at a crick in his neck and smiled at me.

"I thought I'd do something," I said, shrugging.

Wendy didn't have to say thank you. The look in her eyes was enough.

We barely talked while we ate.

"So..." I offered after a long silence. "What are you going to do now?"

"Keep working," Wendy shrugged. "Keep this place up so Neil had a nice place to come home to." Apparently she shared the same sentiment I did.

"That's good," I said, "but don't work too hard."

"Do you need some extra money?" Eric offered. "I have a couple hundred bucks in my checking account. I can lend you…"

"You don't have to do that," she said, smiling into her pizza. "You're too good a friend, Eric. I wish I could have been more accommodating to you guys."

"I accomplished what I came here to do," I said. "You don't have to accommodate to us. We kind of just sprung ourselves on you anyways."

"Uh… yeah, sorry about that…" Eric mumbled.

Wendy laughed. "Don't apologize. It makes you sound like a wuss."

Wendy was a good person. I could tell. Neil needed a friend like her.

* * *

At the end of the day, we said goodbye to Wendy and started on the trip for home (after Eric paid tickets on the car he'd parked illegally). I had called my mom before we left, but she didn't mention I hadn't called her the day before or, come to think of it, the day before that. I discovered why as soon as we'd hit the highway.

"You were calling her when I didn't, weren't you?" I asked Eric, smirking a little.

"Told her that you were just so worn out that you fell asleep as soon as we got to the hotel. I knew you'd forget with everything that was going on, but I didn't want her to worry about you too much. That's my job."

I laughed, leaning on his shoulder for a moment. The drive then grew silent for a long time.

"So… Neil, huh…" Eric started.

"Yeah…" I added, nodding for good measure. "He was pretty bad off, but… I think… I think he'll be okay."

"I don't know what you did back there, but Wendy said when she saw him it was like a different person was standing before her. It wasn't the Neil from before or the Neil she'd had to deal with recently either but…"

"A clean slate," I decided. "I think he's going to give this living thing a second chance."

"Well, we'll see if he can do it."

"I believe in him."

"I'm skeptical, admittedly, but… if you believe, then I believe."

"A good night's sleep does a lot of good to start with," I said and glanced at Eric. "I think he just needed someone to understand what he's been through."

"How do you understand what it's like to be a coke head?" he asked and seemed to regret it because he thought it sounded too mean.

"I don't," I said, "but I knew what happened to him that summer when he was eight years old."

"So did he."

"No… No, he didn't."

I left it at that. It wasn't my place to go spilling Neil's feelings out any more than it was any of his business to spill mine. I'd tell Eric, but I'd only tell him if Neil gave me the okay.

…because I knew, inevitably, Neil and I would see each other again.

* * *

It was the hottest part of August. Eric and I were inseparable the whole summer because thankfully my grades improved, and I didn't have to take summer courses to catch up.

We'd been having fun, mostly. We took another road trip at the beginning of the summer to Eric's hometown in California to pay respect to his deceased parents. He talked to them like they were standing before us, introducing us and everything, and I played along.

He convinced me to switch to contact lenses and before long my hair had grown, and I barely recognized myself from years prior. It was a nice change.

Eric had changed too. He almost never wore make-up anymore, and his clothes seemed to more closely resemble mine than before. I guessed he must have admired me or something, and it was true about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, especially when it was someone as sweet as Eric. He and I would sit in his room and laugh at his depressing poetry from the last few years. If he wrote poetry now, it was just as silly and stupid but also extremely sappy.

We'd also moved up from fourth-grade kissing to sixth-grade kissing, but we still wouldn't do it very often, and never in public. He never minded at all because that's just the kind of guy Eric is.

Deborah came home for a few weeks during the summer, and she was the first to point out my change in demeanor. "I never would have known it was you if you hadn't said something. I don't think I've seen you this happy in a long time."

I didn't tell her or Mom about what really happened. I didn't want to cause any unnecessary grief… or maybe I was still a little bit of a coward…

Baby steps. I'd tell them eventually.

Anyway, August was in full swing. My t-shirt was stuck to me along with strands of hair, and I was sure I was sunburned across the bridge of my nose. Mrs. Johnson's yard had been mowed, and Mr. Huxtable's yard had been mowed, and our yard had been mowed, and I was pretty sure I never wanted to see another blade of grass again.

Eric pulled up in his car and honked the horn. "Hey!" he shouted from the window. "You want to go get some ice cream before I have to go to work?"

Eric had started working at the Salvation Army in Hutchinson, a place that he actually used to shoplift from, because he wanted to buy a new car. "Fuck yeah, I do," I said, sliding into the passenger seat. I waved to my Mom who came walking out on the porch just as we were pulling off, and I could almost guarantee that she and Deborah were about to go back inside and whisper about how suspicious my relationship with Eric was.

"You smell like _ass_," Eric said, making a face.

I smirked at him from where I was hovered over the air conditioning vent. "You mow three lawns in one afternoon in August and see how you smell."

"I didn't say that your stink didn't have good reasoning behind it. I was just stating a fact, I'll have you know."

I just laughed. I felt like I was laughing and smiling all the time now. I could sleep all alone in my bed and not wake up wet or with blood on my face, and on the occasional night that the nightmares would get to me, Eric was a phone call away. I feared I might have been a little obsessed with Eric, but Eric was certainly willing to feed my obsession.

We got ice cream and sat inside the parlor just enjoying the air conditioning. A group of kids came in while we were there, and Eric mentioned that they'd gone to school together. By the way they sauntered over and started proclaiming us to be fags, I was pretty sure they weren't friends.

"Looks like Preston's got a new boyfriend," one of them teased. I didn't care what they thought, but Eric glared at them. "Gee, Preston, isn't this kid a step down from McCormick? Or did high-and-mighty McCormick dump your ass?"

Eric looked down into his ice cream, as if debating whether or not to take the high road or the low road on this one. I was sort of hoping he'd take the low road, just to see the look on the prick's face.

He ended up not having to say anything because the bell on the door tinkled, and a familiar voice said, "I was too busy fucking your dad. Is that what you wanna hear?"

Neil McCormick had sauntered in right on cue. It was like a scene from a fucking movie, and I couldn't help but break into a grin full of laughter. Eric was grinning too, though his was peppered more with surprise than humor.

Neil lowered his cigarette from his lips, smirking. A flock of doves could have been released and it wouldn't have been more perfect.

"Well, well, well, look who's back in Hutchinson," the biggest one said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his too-tight jeans. He was red-faced from Neil's previous comment but appeared to be pretending he'd never said it. His buddies looked like they were trying not to laugh at it. "What brings you back, queer?"

"Your dad called. Said he missed me," Neil said and proceeded to put his cigarette out on the big guy's cheek before kissing the other one and giving it a gentle slap. "Tell him I'm not interested, but that I still said hi." He smacked his ass for good measure.

His friends howled with laughter, unable to stop themselves, and the big guy stormed out with them teasing him all the way out. I had a feeling that burn was going to be difficult to explain.

"I thought I'd find you jackasses here," Neil said, tugging his collar. "I forgot how damn hot it is here in the summer."

Now we had the opportunity to stare, and stare we did. I was left in an equal amount of shock as last time, minus the horror, because this looked so extremely different from the Neil McCormick I had seen before. He looked… great, and that was an understatement.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" he asked, but he had a smug little grin on his face because he knew why and was soaking it up like sunlight. His hair had been chopped off short, and he'd put some meat back on his bones. His skin had regained its color, though he was still a little pale, and there was hardly a trace of a dark circle under either eye. His shirt wasn't ungodly tight on him like in his hustler days, but it wasn't ridiculously loose on him like during his cocaine days, and it was obviously clean and the same color blue as the sky. His jeans looked nearly brand new too. He'd gotten his ear pierced two more times, and he had a new necklace in place of the one he usually wore, gleaming bright silver under the fluorescent lights of the ice cream place.

Eric recovered from his gaping before I did and leaped to his feet to throw his arms around Neil. "Holy shit, when did you get here?"

"Bus dropped me off this morning," Neil said. "Mom said she missed me. Sent me a ticket."

"That's awesome. Wow, look at you!"

"Look at you," Neil responded. "You got rid of the hair dye and make-up and all that shit. Hope Hutchinson hasn't had too much of an effect on you, turned you straight."

Eric laughed, and Neil smiled. Even his teeth looked whiter.

* * *

The three of us drove all around town, bullshitting about what was going on here and there but never bringing up anything serious. Eric had slammed on the brakes in the middle of an intersection when he realized he was thirty minutes late for work, and then proceeded to kick us out while he gunned it for the Salvation Army.

"Guess that means we're hoofing it," Neil said, watching his car disappear around the corner. "I think you should be mean to him for this."

"Why? It's your fault for making him forget," I said, smiling. "He doesn't want to lose the job since he wants a new car so bad."

Neil shrugged and pressed his hands against the back of his neck, lacing his fingers together and started walking. I followed. "So, what the fuck was up with that music in the car?"

"It was Queen."

Neil huffed. "Appropriate, I guess. He done with all that sad music?"

"Seems to be."

"Christ, what have you done to him?" he asked, but he couldn't seem to wipe a smile off of his face, not completely. He dug a cigarette out of the box in his pocket, paused, and peeked inside to see that it was his last one. "Oh, _fuck you_."

I just smiled innocently.

* * *

We wandered until we came to that fateful park of his and sat down on the swings. "So…" he said, blowing smoke into the air before dropping what was left of the cigarette to the ground. "You seem to be pretty good."

"I am. How about you? How's that cocaine craving of yours?"

"Man, I…" he paused, running a hand over his hair, "I still want it every day, but every day it gets a little bit easier… This isn't really my style, but I have to admit that I have you to thank… for that."

I blinked. "I didn't really…"

"Actually, you did," he said, looking me right in the eyes, and at that moment he looked so _alive_. "You did a lot. I was just… fucking… spiraling out of control, you know? I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, even though I guess I always kind of knew. No one got it. No one could understand… except you."

"I guess you and I are connected somehow," I said with a shrug. "I kept feeling like I needed to go to New York and find you, even though I didn't know what was going on. We've only really been around each other three times including this one, but… I feel like I know so much more about you than most people."

Neil chuckled. "Sort of. My shrink knows a lot though. Probably about as much as you… but I don't think she'll get it, not like you can. Words are words but experience is everything."

"Yeah."

"So, anyway, I wanted to say… thanks for kicking my ass back into gear, and I'm sorry for all the shit I said to you before, and I'm sorry about that summer, and um... I'm sorry about everything, really. You aren't like all those other guys, and I should have never said that you-"

"I know," I interrupted. "I know you didn't mean any of that. You were just going through a fucked up part of your life. Believe me, I know how hard it is to admit to yourself that something so bad happened to you."

"Yeah," Neil nodded, staring out into the playground and beyond it, and with his eyes, I thought that maybe he could see all the way back to New York. "I figured something out though, when I saw you… when I saw how… different you were. I was letting that shit just… fucking… consume me, but _you_…" he looked at me, shaking his head in disbelief, and I could have sworn I saw a sliver of admiration. "You… you didn't let that define you."

"It wasn't easy."

"I know. That's what makes it so goddamn impressive."

There was a long second where he just stared into my eyes, and I couldn't help but stare back. I felt like he could see right inside my brain, see every thought in plain block letters. "I had a lot of help from Eric," I said awkwardly.

"Yeah, but the grunt work was yours," Neil said, "and fuck, if you didn't just pass it on. God… I can't believe how fucking _stupid_ I am."

"You're not stupid."

His eyebrows knitted together, but I kept staring at him seriously and said again, "You're not stupid. Don't ever say that. You're so much more… than you think you are. If it's impressive that I rose above what happened to me, then it's just as impressive if not more impressive that you did too. You should be proud of yourself."

"Now, you're starting to sound like my therapist," he laughed, but there was a sense of gratefulness in his voice that I definitely caught. "I guess I do have a little to be proud of. I got out of rehab completely clean and didn't go back to coke. I got a job at a restaurant, even though I'm just a busboy working for minimum wage. Wendy and I moved in with her boyfriend and his roommate so that rent is cheaper, so I actually have some cash to buy shit. Oh, and I guess that Julian guy got over whatever superiority complex he had and his crush on Wendy's boyfriend because he has been pursuing me fucking _vehemently_. Annoying little fuck. I might sleep with him just to shut him up, but probably not."

I chuckled and we just sat there for a long time, sweating and enjoying whatever little wind that blew by.

"Hey," he said suddenly, and when I turned to look he planted a kiss on my mouth. I just stared dumbly when it was over a second later, and he said, "I thought I should give that back to you."

I knew what he meant by that.

"Thanks…"

He kicked his feet up and pushed his body forward on the swing, and it began rocking back and forth. I stared in wonder as the swing rose higher and higher into the air, the breeze dancing in his hair, and I swore that just then and there…

He looked just like an angel.

* * *

**End**

**If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! Love you!**

**-Jessica**


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